THE ETHEL CARR PEACOCK 
 MEMORIAL COLLECTION 
 
 Matris amori monumentum 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 DURHAM, N. C. 
 1903 
 
 Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Dred Peacock 
 
r a 
 
 2mM 
 
 ) 
 / 
 
THE RECREATIONS 
 
 t 
 
 OF A 
 
 PRESIDING ELDER. 
 
 BY THE REV. PAUL WHITEHEAD, D.D., 
 
 Of the Virginia Conferenc1 l |Kri 11 ^. Church, South. 
 
 NASHVILLE, TENN. : 
 
 SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, 
 By the Book Agents of the Methodist Ei'iscorAL Church, South, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
& 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 These papers were originally contributed to the Rich- 
 mond Christian Advocate. I have ventured to add to the 
 series which appeared in that journal some articles which 
 were written as editorials in the same paper, when the 
 writer happened to be editor pro tern. The circumstances 
 of their original appearance will explain local allusions in 
 the articles. They are collected in book form with the 
 hope that they may be worthy of being added to the list 
 of volumes issuing from the Publishing House which com- 
 bine entertainment and instruction. P. W. 
 
 Richmond, Va., April, 1885. 
 
Digitized by 
 
 the Internet Archive 
 
 
 
 in 2014 
 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/recreationsofpreOOwhit_0 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 No. Page 
 
 1. Introductory 7 
 
 2. A Bainy Day 12 
 
 3. An Evening's Music 16 
 
 4. The Old Preacher 21 
 
 5. The Layman of To-day 26 
 
 6. Earth-worms 31 
 
 7. Deep-sea Fishes 40 
 
 8. Two Deaths 51 
 
 9. The General Conference of 1882 56 
 
 10. The Thomasites 63 
 
 11. Country Church-yards 70 
 
 12. The Quarter Stretch 77 
 
 13. Unconscious Selfishness . 87 
 
 14. Doers of the Word 95 
 
 15. The Tunnel of Death 99 
 
 16. Starting the Machine 103 
 
 17. The Itinerant's Sacrifice 108 
 
 18. The Itinerant's Wife 115 
 
 19. The Old North State 121 
 
 20. Gloomy Weather 127 
 
 21. Systematic Men . . . , 132 
 
 22. Machinery in the Church 137 
 
 23. Music in Olden Days 144 
 
 (5) 
 
6 
 
 Contents. 
 
 No. Page 
 
 24. Protracted Meetings 149 
 
 25. The Death of the Old 155 
 
 26. The Eed Sunsets 162 
 
 27. "Custer's Last Charge" 167 
 
 28. Ice-making 173 
 
 29. Sorrowful Holidays 180 
 
 30. A Future State 186 
 
 31. Hollywood Cemetery 191 
 
 32. Monuments in Hollywood 196 
 
 33. Monuments in Hollywood {continued) 205 
 
 34. An Elocutionary Pulpit 215 
 
Regreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 Ho. 1. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 NT> why not? Why should not a 
 presiding elder have recreations? 
 'No man has a more relentless and 
 vacationless routine. He is expected to have 
 no "hot terms" or winter freezings up. He 
 is not expected to send anybody else in his 
 place, unless he be sick or holding a quarter- 
 ly-meeting somewhere else. Naturally he is 
 to be always well and never absent. He is 
 not expected to dedicate churches, or marry 
 rich people at a distance, or preach com- 
 mencement sermons, or take excursions. 
 Why should not presiding elders have recrea- 
 tions, if they can manage it? And perhaps 
 the} r do have them. If "that which cometh 
 on [them] daily, the care of all the church- 
 es," will allow, somewhere in the middle of 
 the week they may find time. 
 
 The present writer is thinking of taking a 
 thought or so " on the wing," as it were, and 
 
8 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 bagging it for the benefit of your readers, Mr. 
 Advocate; and while thus diversifying his 
 employment of time, he may recreate his 
 flagging energies, and it may be do good by 
 a shot from a bow drawn " at a venture." 
 lie " minds " him — as the Scotch say — of the 
 "Recreations of a Country Parson." If he 
 might only find the pen of so ready a writer, 
 he might turn hours of recreation or enforced 
 cessation of work to good account, and say 
 many things pleasantly, if not wisely, in the 
 course of the four quarters. Boyd, the " Coun- 
 try Parson," wrote one of his articles on the 
 paper held on the flat part of his horse's fore- 
 head between and above the eyes, as he pet- 
 ted the family nag in the stable, with the 
 manger for a seat and the stable surround- 
 ings for inspiration. (I see a stable now and 
 then in my rounds where I couldn't have 
 stood, sat, or been inspired !) That was an 
 odd conceit; but I might seek a table almost 
 as queer. The pine-leaves spread as a carpet 
 in these woods may do; or that stump, more 
 level than its fellows; or yonder fence-rail, 
 broad and smooth; a big chip in the oak 
 woods of home, or a rock in the glens lined 
 
Introductory. 
 
 with the ferns and wild ginger, loved from 
 boyhood. 
 
 On some such basis I can scribble what 
 passes through "the musing mind," at times 
 that call for no professional labor. And think- 
 ing of whither it is to go when scribbled sets 
 me to musing for the thousandth time about 
 the press and its incessant issues. Every- 
 where we meet them: the newsboy on the 
 train, the black venders of newspapers about 
 the depots, the counters of bookstores and 
 news-shops, the circulars and "specimen- 
 pages," with which every man is deluged 
 w T hose name is unfortunate enough to have 
 been printed in any wise. Books, pamphlets, 
 papers, broadsides, plain and illustrated — the 
 land is flooded ! For good or evil, with light 
 or darkness; upon minds of all sorts, from the 
 negro spelling along the road to knowledge 
 to the scholar in his library. Who can trace 
 the effects or calculate the power of all this? 
 
 We must do our best to make our Meth- 
 odist press powerful for good this year. It 
 has already carried blessings to thousands; 
 let us try to get it into every crevice and cor- 
 ner. The "Old Richmond,'' with its edito- 
 
10 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 rials and other matter for grown folks, and 
 "Uncle Larry's" column for the little ones — 
 may its pleasant face shine in many a new 
 spot, and brighten and benefit many a house- 
 hold hitherto unblessed! 
 
 The paucity of reading families among our 
 people oppresses me. It is not poverty — the 
 poorest often read most. Mr. Wesley's coll- 
 ier converts were poorer than our late slaves, 
 but they read. It is ignorance, it is intel- 
 lectual stupidity, it is the rust and canker 
 of worldliness; minds are sometimes quick, 
 and even preternaturally sharp, but it is in 
 the direction of money-getting, and not in 
 that of wisdom-getting — celestial wisdom — 
 "the principal thing." 
 
 There are cheerful spots and signs. The 
 Sunday-schools; a family with tables that 
 have books, some new and showing use; the 
 thoughtful eye opened upon you as you stand 
 up to preach (what man of God cannot dis- 
 cern them among his hearers?); the children 
 attending good schools (though too many of 
 them contract no taste for literature) ; the 
 conversation now and then breaking away 
 from business, weather, and crops, and neigh- 
 
Introductory. 
 
 11 
 
 borhood gossip — these are hopeful things. 
 But 0 the leaden pall of ignorance and prej- 
 udice, unlifted by any taste for books or pa- 
 pers, or sign of any such taste beginning, 
 that lies upon the masses! And while it lies 
 there what hope of doing much good to such 
 people by sermons and conversations? When 
 reading and thinking people lose so much of 
 a sermon, what hope that these will carry 
 away a solitary grain of rightly-divided truth ? 
 They will have gone to church and gone 
 home, and that will be nearly all. 
 
 Let the preachers in the Church Confer- 
 ences press inquiry third: "Is our religious 
 literature circulated and read?" and speak 
 words "in season" in private; and let our 
 intelligent people second the movement. 
 
12 Recreations of a Presiding Eider. 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 A RAINY DAY. 
 RAINY Saturday— chill, gloomy, 
 with a steady down-pour! No hope 
 of service or even of Quarterly Con- 
 ference to-day ! Thank God, it is not Sun- 
 day ! Some cheer in that view. As the man 
 of God who had alternately the gout and the 
 stone, when he had one thanked God that it 
 was not the other, so when some weeks ago the 
 snow shut out a Sabbath service, I could bless 
 God that Saturday had been tolerably fair, 
 and that Quarterly Conference had been held 
 with respectable numbers. And, as it has 
 often happened, to-morrow may be as bright 
 as May. 
 
 How nice to be able, housed and disabled 
 from active movements, to spend the dreary 
 day in pleasant converse with a clever book ! 
 Blessings on the great printing art, which 
 robs long nights in winter of their dullness, 
 and makes civilization and refinement come 
 in place of the barbarism which fought all 
 
13 
 
 day with brutes or savages, gorged itself with 
 meat and drink at sunset, and then slept oft* 
 the debauch ! Reading and pleasant friends 
 can make agreeable even a rainy Saturday. 
 
 What a grand agency of Providence this 
 " weather bureau " is ! 
 
 The thirsty ground has been drinking at a 
 great rate for many weeks, what it so much 
 longed for last summer, and for lack of which 
 it n earl y perished. Much of the soil will be 
 fit emblem of an improving Christian. " For 
 the earth that drinketh in the rain that com- 
 eth oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs 
 meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiv- 
 eth blessings from God." May it be so with 
 my district! Lord of the harvest, send the 
 spiritual showers! Where drought parched 
 last year let times of refreshing come from 
 the presence of the Lord this year! There 
 come back to me remembrances of some 
 "years of the right-hand of the Most High" 
 in my earlier religious days. One was in a 
 place seemingly barren; but in answer to the 
 prayers of some faithful souls in all the 
 churches, there came such a shower of Di- 
 vine influence as it will be impossible for any 
 
14 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 who felt it to forget. Glorious fruit of it 
 remains to this clay; and some of it, if we 
 gather up all the good resulting and connect- 
 ed, "shakes like Lebanon." That and an- 
 other great outpouring of the Spirit I re- 
 member, near the same date, were in May. 
 
 There is no reason why " revivals " should be 
 " confined," as a veteran presiding elder said, 
 " to fodder-pulling- time." I have rather lost 
 faith in the efficacy of set protracted-meetings 
 regularly held summer after summer at each 
 church. They come to be regarded as a mat- 
 ter of course, and also by many as a neigh- 
 borhood frolic or diversion. On the whole, 
 they produce less and less in number, quality, 
 and stability of converts. The meetings that 
 come clown instead of being got up, that 
 force themselves upon preachers, keep the 
 ark afloat. Arranged not after man's plans 
 or man's wisdom, and especially with no par- 
 ticular regard to man's worldly convenience, 
 they break over the barriers of formalism and 
 worldliness, and sweep all before them. I 
 trust all our preachers labor for immediate 
 results, summer and winter, to make a sav- 
 ing impression then and there in every ser- 
 
A Rainy Day. 
 
 15 
 
 moo. Let them watch the signs and press 
 the battle where the enemy's picket-line falls 
 back. 
 
 For the same reason let us discourage all 
 set evangelists of the trade-revivalist type. 
 Doubtless many of them have done good in 
 various places. Some of them have done no 
 great harm anywhere, but the general effect 
 of their position and assumed calling has 
 been to depreciate the value of close, steady, 
 painstaking, patient pastoral work, and to 
 narrow and distort the souls of the men them- 
 selves. Even the Church itself cannot be in 
 a continual excitement, and these men soon 
 become of little account in any other circum- 
 stances. Years ago I read in Dr. Nicholas 
 Murray's "Preachers and Preaching" some 
 wholesome chapters on the subject, with piqu- 
 ant illustrations from actual life; and I in 
 the main agree with him yet, notwithstand- 
 ing the Earles, Howards, Harrisons, and In- 
 skips. Of course no man need, because of 
 such reasons, forbear sending for help to his 
 brethren in pastoral and other work not too 
 remote from him and his people. 
 
16 Recreations of a Presiding Ehhr. 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 AN EVENING'S MUSIC. 
 HIS time it is recreation, sure e- 
 nough. It is nearly eleven o'clock 
 at night — a rainy night, with heavy 
 showers and a gloomy world of darkness in- 
 deed to gaze upon when we go to the window; 
 but within all is bright and comfortable. I 
 have been sitting since about nine o'clock 
 drinking in a marvelous draught of pleasure. 
 Dr. Watts speaks of his soul sitting and 
 singing 
 
 Herself away 
 
 To everlasting bliss. 
 
 I could not at any time, and least of all now, 
 do much at singing; but I think just at pres- 
 ent I could magnify the office of sitting; and 
 if innocent earthly bliss — sweet prelude of 
 the "everlasting bliss" — comes ever to me, 
 it comes in the guise which it takes to-night. 
 A dear friend, a pianist of rare ability, has 
 been dispensing the riches of his repertoire 
 with a power and expression seldom heard 
 anywhere. The exquisite touch, the rare 
 
An Everting' 's Music. 
 
 17 
 
 conception of the composer's very inward 
 thoughts, and the perfect command of all the 
 technique of the piano, are on hand to-night 
 in unusual excellence even for him; and the 
 noble instrument sighs and breaks its heart 
 with Chopin, thunders majestically with Rob- 
 ert Schumann, or sounds all depths and 
 utters unspeakable things with the great 
 Beethoven. If Sancho Panza was right in 
 invoking blessings upon "the man that in- 
 vented sleep," what inestimable good ought 
 to be wished for the man that invented music 
 — for that rare old Jubal, "the father of all 
 such as handle the harp and organ," or some 
 other remote ancestor who first adventured 
 upon the art that "brought an angel down" 
 to earth! I am his debtor largely. Other 
 descendants of his, tuneless and insensible to 
 the "concord of sweet sounds," may feel 
 under no special obligations to him; but I 
 can set up a stone at point after point all 
 through the length of memory's exercise, and 
 thank God for great enjoyment — pure pleas- 
 ures, fleeting and ethereal, but prophetic of 
 the world where all things are perfect and 
 eternal ! I am not one of those who think 
 2 
 
18 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 music is religious intrinsically. Least of all 
 do I dream that the greatest musical knowl- 
 edge and ability have any power to work a 
 change of heart. One of the greatest living 
 musicians, not long ago visiting this country, 
 is an incorrigible and desperate gamester; 
 and another, immoral and infidel, takes up 
 and puts down wives with Mormon-like fa- 
 cility. But I do wonder that any thing " un- 
 holy and unclean " can live in the presence 
 of this glorious art. The strains that the 
 mighty masters have composed and the skill- 
 ful performer knows how to render, seem 
 ofttimes to be fragments of the songs of an- 
 gels that have fallen down upon us through 
 some rift in the skies. I heard once, played 
 by an orchestra of one hundred skilled play- 
 ers, a slow movement of a symphony which 
 was unearthly in its sweetness and purity. 
 It lingers in my impressions as matchless 
 and unapproachable. I can recall nothing 
 of it distinctly, but my heart hardly beat 
 while I listened; and after years gone by it 
 still reigns in my soul, facile princeps of all 
 music I ever heard. 
 
 You see my district has a musical point in 
 
An Ecening's Music. 19 
 
 it. There I will be able sometimes to refresh 
 myself and comfort myself after the torture 
 I shall suffer from barbarous doings in sacred 
 music; for I shall certainly be put upon that 
 rack occasionally. I affect no taste for great 
 precision and excellence in that respect; I 
 can hear and enjoy simple, unpretentious 
 hymns and sacred melodies. By virtue of 
 their own sweetness and by association, many 
 of them are precious to me; I love many old 
 tunes — some of them unwritten, so far as I 
 know — that have embodied the pious aspira- 
 tions and emotions of good, plain men and 
 women innocent of musical art, ignorant of 
 Handel and Beethoven, and the "classic" 
 music of any age; but the tune devoid of 
 character, a lifeless seesaw; the man that 
 sings like a stick or a piece of putty, with no 
 expression, no idea of tempo, no soul in him; 
 the woman who plays an organ staccato, or 
 whoops with a constant and abominable ex- 
 aggeration of the portamento (the gliding up 
 to or down from a note which artists use oc- 
 casionally), "my soul hateth!" From all 
 such, "good Lord, deliver us!" Let that be 
 an additional petition in the Litany. 
 
20 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 Now and then I come upon spots where 
 singing is "a lost art." I suppose it was 
 known in the days of the fathers, when most 
 Methodists sung "with the spirit," if not 
 "with the understanding also." But "a 
 drought has since succeeded, and a sad decline 
 we see." The fathers that raised tunes, 
 " w T here are they? " and the itinerant singing- 
 masters, " do they live forever?" Theyoung 
 men and maidens are tuneless as the corn- 
 stalks. You can sing solo in those regions, 
 " no man forbidding." "The world of mel- 
 ody" is all your own. Be it so that your 
 voice is like that of a bull-frog, you must 
 croak, or worship God by other means than 
 "the service of song." 
 
The Old Preacher. 
 
 21 
 
 No. 4. 
 THE OLD PREACHER, 
 O-DAY 1 am spending some hours 
 at the house of one of our older 
 preachers, retired from the active 
 work. Bereaved of the dear companion of 
 his youthful, brighter years, and with the 
 time of the "sear, the yellow leaf" fallen 
 upon him, he is nevertheless cheerful, hospi- 
 table, reading and taking active interest in 
 the Church and its affairs. He is full of 
 reminiscence and instructive anecdote, tak- 
 ing no gloomy, doleful view of his age and 
 surroundings. 
 
 How refreshing! For I have known old 
 preachers who were querulous and grum- 
 bling, sardonic and bitter, sour in spirit, and 
 continually asking, "Why were the former 
 days better than these days?" 
 
 It is a sad sight to see a man once eloquent 
 and energetic, moving and charming thou- 
 sands in the great congregation, now shat- 
 tered by disease and bowed down by the 
 weight of years ; but it is far sadder to see 
 
22 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 him also invaded by the acidities and petty 
 earpings of an unhappy old age. Our last 
 years should surely be our best; and it is well 
 if they be pervaded by a sunny religion which 
 sparkles and flashes and easts its heavenly radi- 
 ance over gray hairs and dismantled homes. 
 
 I am concerned about the future in this 
 life of many of the oldest members of our 
 Conference. Some of them have been un- 
 fortunate, some improvident and bad man- 
 agers; some have felt the hand of affliction 
 heavily laid upon them; some of them have 
 "no certain dwelling-place/' and yet cannot 
 "take their turn," perform their labor, and 
 be provided for with their active brethren. 
 Our Conference collection aids them, the 
 "Relief" Society fund grows slowly, and 
 comes forward in a pinch; but the prospect 
 is more or less cheerless with many. 0 that 
 it were in the heart of some of our rich 
 members, who have made their hundreds of 
 thousands in trade or speculation — perhaps 
 this very year — to found a noble charity that 
 would provide for such! Mr. Corcoran's 
 "Louise Home" for decayed gentlewomen 
 is a charity at once beneficent and graceful. 
 
The Old Preacher. 
 
 23 
 
 They are simply distressed and impoverished 
 people of refinement, formerly in wealth and 
 comfort, whom he relieves. Nothing is due 
 to them for any thing they have done save 
 acknowledgment of the faithfulness with 
 which they adorned their former station ; yet 
 he felt how excellent a thing it would be to 
 smooth the path to the grave of such old 
 gentlewomen. 
 
 But our old ministers, sick, worn out, and 
 reduced, are men who once dispensed spirit- 
 ual blessings to thousands, and as the agents 
 of God's redeeming grace saved many from 
 eternal death. The Church owes them shel- 
 ter, sustenance, and relief from care. There 
 ought to be a place provided, beautiful and 
 comfortable — an earthly ante-chamber of 
 heaven— in which these old soldiers of the 
 cross could wait for the messenger bringing 
 everlasting rest and glory. 
 
 But why suggest that rich men should do 
 this? Cannot the multitude of men of little 
 means, who yet have something to give, and 
 above all, generous hearts, unite in its ac- 
 complishment? Perhaps they might, but 
 upon them is being thrown every burden. 
 
24 Recreations of a Presiding .Elder. 
 
 They it is, not the rich, who furnish the reg- 
 ular support of the ministry; who keep up 
 our regular collections, who relieve the hulk 
 of the poor, and sustain our religious news- 
 papers and publishing interests. If our col- 
 leges are ever endowed they will probably 
 have to do it hy slow and steady giving, for 
 it is plain to my mind that the rich are not 
 going to do it. Men who put $50,000 in a 
 house, and spend thousands upon luxurious 
 furniture and living — whose annual outlay in 
 their families is twenty or thirty times the 
 living of many generous and self-sacrificing 
 plain men — think they have done great things 
 in donating five or six thousand to a college. 
 Occasionally one gives an organ or a steeple, 
 or a ten-thousand-dollar church, and thinks 
 he has exhausted Christian benevolence for 
 the rest of his life; or, if a twinge of con- 
 science take him in "a cold snap," consoles 
 himself by spending a few hundreds upon 
 the freezing poor. Our D'Arcy Pauls have 
 no successors yet. The really rich dare not 
 apply to their income a scale of giving like 
 his. To think of doing so would frighten 
 them out of a week's sleep ! 
 
The Old Preacher. 
 
 25 
 
 Meantime, while this provision for the aged 
 and worn-out remains Unco Detracted, I am 
 daily admiring the courage and devotion and 
 self-sacrifice of the average preacher. Men 
 who have the gifts and energy and education 
 to have made abundance, if not riches, in any 
 ordinary business, are living on salaries of 
 from $500 to $850, and "managing some- 
 how" to clothe and feed their families — 
 often large ones — and educate the boys and 
 girls. For Christ's sake, for the glory of his 
 name and the advancement of his cause, they 
 "gladly wander up and down, and smile at 
 toil and pain." Surely the days of heroism 
 are not past ! 
 
 And I am not reproaching our people. 
 They do better for their preachers, as a whole, 
 than others do for theirs. If their ministe- 
 rial lottery has no prizes, it has few or no 
 blanks 
 
26 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 5. 
 
 THE LAYMAN OF TODAY. 
 F my journeyings bring to my 
 knowledge the heroism and devo- 
 tion of the average preacher, they 
 do not the less reveal the worth and piety 
 and fidelity of the average layman. 
 
 In our Church, in town and country, he 
 belongs to the middle class — a denomination 
 not at all answering to what is so called in 
 England, where it means, almost always, a 
 shop-keeper of some sort; and still less an- 
 swering to the shop class in Germany and 
 Continental Europe generally, where the 
 word they use implies a doubtful honesty as 
 well as lack of refinement; but correspond- 
 ing to the yeomen of " Merry England" and 
 the burgher of the Middle Ages — the class in 
 which liberty has always flourished. 
 
 If he be a farmer, he is of the independent 
 kind who are ready to reply to offers of place 
 and promotion, "I dwell among mine own 
 people;" if a merchant or mechanic, he is 
 of the thriftier class, who do honest work, 
 
The Layman of To-day. 
 
 21 
 
 and manage to get paid for it. No serf or 
 bondsman, be owns his land ; and in bis borne, 
 more or less comfortable, shelters the nest- 
 lings of his heart. In trade he is no restless 
 speculator dreaming of wealth well-nigh 
 gambled for, driving every thing with head- 
 long speed and godless absorption, but a 
 steady man of business, undertaking things 
 in a square and natural wa} 7 ; in no fever of 
 hurry, and yet "not slothful in business." 
 
 Ofttimes he is a "Johnny Reb." Perhaps 
 in the bloom of youth he followed the flag 
 of the "Lost Cause," and mostly as a "high 
 private," but sometimes with rank still rec- 
 ognized in his present title, came out of 
 bloody war's alarms. Oftenerthan otherwise 
 be bears upon his person in more places than 
 one the certificate of his bravery; and gen- 
 erally in his quiet but determined look, in 
 his modest yet gallant bearing, his candid, 
 straightforward talk, you discern the signs 
 of a man who did not linger behind when a 
 charge was ordered, or in the hour of peril 
 skulk behind some base subterfuge. 
 
 In not a few instances he came out of the 
 war to confront utter poverty; but he took 
 
28 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 hold in good fashion, wasted no time in vain 
 regrets, sold none of the "grit" in him for 
 " a mess of pottage" mixed with political dirt, 
 and has progressed surprisingly. The inher- 
 ent recuperative powers of such a man have 
 been displayed. In many cases he is "well 
 to do" in every respect; in no case does he eat 
 "the bread of idleness," but breasts the waves 
 of adverse fortune with a cheerful courage. 
 
 By such men the prostrate work of our 
 Church has been set upon its legs; churches 
 burned or pulled down in war, or decayed 
 and forsaken, have been rehabilitated or re- 
 built; the preacher finds "homes " unknown 
 to the old ante helium itinerant; Sunday- 
 schools and other evangelical agencies "blos- 
 som as the rose." These men make our " New 
 Virginia," in the Methodist sense. The 
 armed heel of Mars trampled the life out of 
 the Old Virginia in many places, but the new 
 crop is in full vigor. 
 
 Our average layman is a capital listener to 
 the gospel; he is hardly ever a sleepy-head. 
 Generally he has the Advocate in his house; 
 where he has it not he is an inferior specimen 
 of his order. Purity, true politeness — unaf- 
 
The Layman of To-day. 
 
 29 
 
 fected and unstrained; genuine hospitality — 
 free and overflowing, reign in his household. 
 The children are good, affectionate, frequent- 
 ly very bright boys and girls; they know 
 how to work, and are not ashamed to do it; 
 they go to school too, and Venable's Arith- 
 metic and Gildersleeve's or Bingham's Latin 
 books are there on the table, bound with that 
 leather strap. 
 
 There are not many doctors, lawyers, judg- 
 es, and great landed proprietors of the old 
 wealthy class, in our communion. Being* in 
 Georgia some years ago, I was amazed to 
 meet frequently judges who were Methodists. 
 Such do not commonly grow up here. The 
 lawyers, as a class, are Presbyterians or Epis- 
 copalians. We have a moderate share of the 
 sons of Esculapius — the mass of that profes- 
 sion, alas! know little of the "Physician of 
 souls." 
 
 But we have a powerful body in the com- 
 munity in our yeomanry. As I looked at 
 Brother Crooks' projected "Map of the Con- 
 ference," and saw the thickly-strewn church- 
 es of our denomination planted in every 
 neighborhood, I said to myself — thinking of 
 
30 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 the day when Methodism met in Conference 
 at "Ellis's" and "Lane's," in Revolutionary 
 Virginia— "What hath God wrought!" 
 
 Behold the building material, the "living 
 stones " of our house ! It is " a holy temple 
 unto the Lord,'' not to be despised. We 
 expect to make it far lovelier, more polished, 
 more beautiful, more capacious. Meanwhile 
 we " thank God, and take courage." We are 
 in no danger of disintegration or extinction; 
 we trust that our ministry and membership 
 carry "the life of God" with them; we will 
 get rid of the things that "offend." "Ev- 
 ery branch in me that beareth not fruit He 
 taketh away." But all over the land we see 
 these healthful trees of the planting of the 
 Most High. The great Husbandman will 
 "prune" them "that they may bear more 
 fruit." 
 
Earth-worms. 
 
 31 
 
 No. 6. 
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 
 
 OR pleasant and profitable occupa- 
 tion of many of my hours in travel 
 and waiting, on rainy days and in 
 accidental leisure, I have been indebted to 
 the English Quarterly Reviews — favorites from 
 boyhood. I always find a few articles in 
 each that are worth the price of the Reviews 
 for a year. Occasionally one will do a man's 
 reading for him on a special subject, glean- 
 ing the grain of many elaborate works, put- 
 ting in short compass information from many 
 sources ordinarily inaccessible to the common 
 reader. They are suggestive, stimulating to 
 independent thought in a high degree, and 
 furnish in the course of a year many valua- 
 ble illustrations to a preacher. 
 
 This week they have interested me in some 
 departments of natural history, into which 
 I am disposed to ask the readers of the Ad- 
 vocate to follow me a little way. 
 
 In the January number of the old London 
 Quarterly — founded by Gifford seventy- six 
 
32 'Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 years ago — there is a review of the remark- 
 able work of Mr. Charles Darwin on "Earth 
 worms." The veteran naturalist, at over 
 seventy years of age, gives his latest publi- 
 cation to this subject — the result of long- 
 continued and sharp observations made by 
 himself and sons. 
 
 Few of us who have been concerned with 
 earth-worms chiefly as bait for fishing when 
 w T e were boys, or as food for young birds, as 
 we have on a damp morning in spring 
 watched the robins and sparrows pulling 
 them out of the ground, have imagined that 
 they were playing an important part in nat- 
 ure's economy; but it would seem that He 
 who chooses the base things of the world to 
 confound the mighty has assigned a grand 
 task to these obscure and lowly organized 
 creatures. The} 7 are the little plowers of 
 the earth, engaged in the production of that 
 vegetable mold which constitutes the culti- 
 vable land of the entire earth. Thoroughly 
 breaking up the upper layers (their burrows 
 being three and four, and sometimes seven 
 or eight feet deep), undermining and sinking 
 pebbles and other objects lying upon the 
 
Earth-worms. 
 
 33 
 
 surface; eating, digesting, and voiding de- 
 cayed vegetable matter, they bring to the top 
 of the ground a finely-ground earthy matter 
 which is gradually distributed by various 
 agencies over the whole face of the ground. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the regularity of their 
 industry. Ants and bees, heretofore regard- 
 ed as monopolists of that high virtue, must 
 stand aside in comparison. Nothing but the 
 coral insect, that magnificent architect of 
 the tropical seas, can be mentioned in respect 
 of the extent and solidity of work; and he, 
 like many showy workers, does great things 
 in a region where they are out of the reach 
 of the great mass of mankind, and which 
 serve rather as curiosities than as useful prod- 
 ucts. 
 
 I give some extracts from this [taper, as 
 the subject will be new, and I think interest- 
 ing, to many readers of the Advocate. 
 
 As to the amount of work done by the 
 worms, "Mr. Darwin quotes a German au- 
 thority for an estimate that 53,767 worms 
 exist in an acre of land; but this estimate 
 was founded on the number found in gardens, 
 and the same authority believes that about 
 o 
 
34 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 half as many live in corn-fields. In short, there 
 seems good evidence that on each acre of 
 land adapted to the work of worms a weight 
 of more than ten tons of earth annually passes 
 through their bodies, and is brought to the 
 surface. In England and Scotland the land 
 which is cultivated and is well fitted for these 
 animals has been estimated at 32,000,000 
 acres. The astonishing but inevitable con- 
 clusion is, that in Great Britain alone no less 
 an amount of earth than 320,000,000 tons is 
 annually brought by worms from under- 
 ground to the surface of the earth. Well 
 may Mr. Darwin lay stress on such an illus- 
 tration of the enormous effects which may be 
 produced by continually recurrent causes, 
 however small." 
 
 Some interesting observations are narrated 
 by Mr. Darwin of their labors in carrying 
 underneath to the depth of two and a half or 
 three inches in thirty years all the stones of 
 afield, some of them half as large as a child's 
 head. 
 
 Read the following to learn that there is 
 vastly more in an earth-worm than is " dreamt 
 of in your philosophy." These are revela- 
 
Earth-worms. 
 
 35 
 
 tions partly due to the microscope: u The 
 structure of these obscure creatures is far 
 more complicated than would be supposed 
 by any one but a naturalist. The body of a 
 large worm consists, we are told, of from one 
 hundred to two hundred almost cylindrical 
 rings or segments, each furnished with mi- 
 nute bristles, and the muscular system is well 
 developed. The mouth, which is at one end 
 of the body, has a little lip for prehension. 
 Behind it is a'pharynx, which can be pushed 
 forward at pleasure, and which worms expand 
 for the purpose of enlarging their holes as 
 they burrow into the ground. Behind this is a 
 long esophagus, in which there are three pairs 
 of large glands, which Mr. Darwin says are 
 'highly remarkable, for nothing like them is 
 known in any other animal.' They secrete a 
 surprising amount of carbonate of lime, and al- 
 though their use is not certain, * it is probable 
 that they primarily serve as organs of excre- 
 tion, and secondarily as an aid to digestion.' 
 Worms consume many fallen leaves, and 
 these have been sometimes known to contain 
 as much as seventy-two per cent, of lime. 
 Unless, therefore, there were some means for 
 
36 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 excreting this, earth-worms would be liable 
 to become overcharged with it. Accordingly 
 large concretions of carbonate of lime are 
 found in these glands, so large that 'how 
 they escape from the gland is a marvel;' but 
 that they do escape is certain, for they are 
 often found in the gizzard, and intestines, 
 and in the castings of worms. . . . The 
 esophagus ends in a crop, and behind this is 
 a gizzard, in which grains of sand and small 
 stones may generally be found; and it is 
 probable that these serve like mill-stones to 
 triturate the food. The gizzard leads to the 
 intestine, which runs in a straight course to 
 the posterior end of the body, and this intes- 
 tine again presents a remarkable structure. 
 The circulatory system and the nervous sys- 
 tem are both fairly well developed. Worms 
 possess no respiratory organs, but breathe by 
 their skin. They are destitute of eyes, but 
 are not insensible to light, which affects them 
 partly by its intensity and partly by its du- 
 ration; and when a certain blaze of light is 
 directed upon a worm it will sometimes dart 
 like a rabbit into its burrow. They are thus 
 enabled to distinguish between day and night, 
 
Earth- worms. 
 
 37 
 
 so as to escape danger from the many animals 
 which would prey upon them by day. They 
 possess no sense of hearing; and when placed 
 on a table close to the keys of a piano, which 
 was played as loudly as possible, they re- 
 mained perfectly quiet. . . . Indeed, of all 
 their senses, that of touch seems the most 
 highly developed. . . . Their sense of smell 
 is feeble, but they seem to be able to discover 
 by means of it strong-smelling food, of which 
 they are fond, such as onions and decayed 
 cabbage-leaves. In respect of food, however, 
 they are omnivorous. Their importance in 
 the economy of nature depends mainly upon 
 the fact that they swallow an extraordinary 
 quantity of earth, extracting from it any di- 
 gestible matter which it may contain. They 
 also consume a large quantity of half-decayed 
 leaves of all kinds, and fresh leaves also. 
 They will eat sugar and liquorice, dry starch, 
 raw and roasted meats, and above all raw fat. 
 They are, moreover, cannibals, for Mr. Dar- 
 win found that two halves of a dead worm 
 placed in their pots were dragged into their 
 burrows and gnawed." 
 
 The reviewer is no disciple of Darwin in 
 
38 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 the doctrine of Evolution. Giving all praise 
 to the great naturalist for his masterly qual- 
 ities and attainments as a scientific man, he 
 refuses to admit the truth of the speculative 
 views suggested by Mr. Darwin's imagina- 
 tion. He says: " We still remain convinced 
 of the preniatureness, to say no more, ot 
 what is commonly, whether with strict jus- 
 tice or not, styled the Darwinian theory of 
 Evolution." And at the close of his article 
 he turns Darwin's own guns against him in 
 clever style, as follows: 
 
 "We cannot but conclude with one sug- 
 gestion, which seems naturally to arise out 
 of such a wonderful narrative. Is the ac- 
 complishment of such enormous results by 
 an agency so insignificant, but at the same 
 time so exactly adapted to the work to be 
 done, explicable on any other supposition 
 than that of positive design? It is observa- 
 ble that in this book we do not find any sug- 
 gestion of the influences by which so singular 
 an agency can have been evolved by natural 
 selection. These infinitely numerous little 
 plows seem to be expressly provided to 
 prepare the earth for the sustentation of 
 
Earth-worms. 
 
 39 
 
 plants and of other animal life, and for no 
 other purpose whatever. We can remember 
 no more vivid illustration of the old argu- 
 ment which infers from the perfect adaptation 
 of means to ends the action throughout nat- 
 ure of a Divine wisdom and will." 
 
 That "old argument" is as strong as ever. 
 In fact, the more observations "in heaven 
 and earth" are collected by naturalists and 
 scientists of the infidel school, the better for 
 the theistic doctrine. These men " build bet- 
 ter than they know." Their works of careful 
 study and patient observation will be mate- 
 rial for illustrations of the Divine wisdom 
 and goodness which will be ever fresh. 
 
40 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 7. 
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHES. 
 AM done with earth-worms, but 
 not with natural history. 
 "The earth is full of thy riches," 
 says the psalmist; but he adds, "So also is 
 this great and wide sea, wherein are things 
 creeping innumerable, both small and great 
 beasts." I am (thanks to the Quarterly) go- 
 ing to reveal to my readers some of these 
 marine wonders. 
 
 I have always been fond of fishing and 
 fishes. Many a pleasant hour of recreation 
 have I had in that way. In the vast, lonely, 
 wild mountains, along the banks lined with 
 kalmia and rhododendron ("ivy ; ' and "lau- 
 rel"), among rocks of fantastic shapes and 
 huge proportions, covered with moss and 
 ferns of such greenness and loveliness as are 
 unknown in other more accessible places, 
 here and there coming on a wild flower of 
 some unusual species, I have fished for the 
 brook trout in pools of surpassing brightness 
 and beauty, glassy and cool, of crystal-like 
 
Deep-sea Fishes. 
 
 41 
 
 clearness and purity. Or, in boats dug out 
 of the bulky cypress log, I have glided over 
 the somewhat darkened but still polished 
 waters of a mill-pond in the lowlands, and 
 anchored to a submerged stump or fallen 
 trunk of a tree, have drawn out perch, pike, 
 and green bass ("chub") from the teeming 
 waters. If quantity and activity of biting 
 be on the side of the deep lowland waters, 
 ornamented with the pond-lily and shaded 
 by the graceful cypress, the crystal sheen of 
 the waters, the brilliant colors and shyness 
 of the fish, the wild beauty and magnificence 
 of the scenery, and above all the purity of 
 the air and the delightfulness of the temper- 
 ature, are on the side of the "everlasting 
 hills" and the " springs" which " run among" 
 them. No deadly "chill" lurks in their 
 glorious glens; the thirsty fisher can kneel 
 down and "drink out of the branch" as of 
 a fountain of nectar; and he will see only 
 one rattlesnake now and then, for a hun- 
 dred water-moccasins in the low country. 
 Nevertheless, each region has its peculiar 
 charms and attractions, and I have re- 
 sponded in both to the Peter-like remark, 
 
42 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 "T go a-fishing," with a cheerful "I also go 
 with thee." 
 
 But I have never fished in the sea. That 
 is an enjoyment yet to come. Of "hand- 
 lines" I know nothing, and have never 
 caught drum or sheep's-head or blue-fish. 
 Many of the "riches" of the Lord in "this 
 great and wide sea" I have seen ; but neither 
 I nor- most of my readers, I suppose, have 
 before heard of what I am going to glean 
 from the Quarterly's pages. 
 
 The late Commodore Maury devotes a part 
 of his work on the "Physical Geography of 
 the Sea" to the great "telegraphic plateau" 
 which he first pointed out as stretching along 
 the bottom of the ocean from Newfoundland 
 to Ireland at a great depth, but not too deep 
 to admit the laying of a cable upon it. Be- 
 sides the excellence of its freedom from agi- 
 tation, he recommended it as free from both 
 vegetable and animal life. Nothing would 
 be down there, neither " small [nor] great 
 beasts " to disturb or root up the cable. " We 
 have now," said he, "had specimens from 
 the bottom of 'blue water' in the narrow 
 Coral Sea, the broad Pacific, and the long 
 
Deep-sea Fishes. 
 
 43 
 
 Atlantic, and they all tell the same story, 
 namely, that the hed of the ocean is a vast 
 cemetery." And again: "Where there is a 
 nursery, hard by there will be found also a 
 grave-yard — such is the condition of the ani- 
 mal world. But it never occurred to us before 
 to consider the surface of the sea as one wide 
 nursery, its every ripple as a cradle, and its 
 bottom one vast burial-place." 
 
 But this has proved to be probably a mis- 
 take. Whatever may be true of the actual 
 bottom, later investigations have revealed 
 that the deep sea, at from live hundred to eight 
 hundred fathoms (3,000 to 4,800 feet — nearly 
 a mile!) of perpendicular depths, where all 
 faint reflection of sunlight is unknown, where 
 the constant temperature is about thirty-six 
 (only four above freezing) degrees, where 
 vegetation is impossible, is inhabited, the 
 world over, by a'numerous family of fishes. 
 
 An article on "Fishes and Their Habits" 
 gives highly interesting information con- 
 cerning these wonders of the deep. Besides 
 the absence of the sunlight and the low tern- 
 perature, another circumstance, supposed to 
 be fatal to any living creature at such depths, 
 
44 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 was the increased pressure by the water. 
 " The pressure of the atmosphere on the level 
 of theseaamonnts to fifteen pounds persquare 
 inch of the surface of the body of an animal, 
 but the pressure amounts to a ton weight 
 for every one thousand fathoms of depth." 
 Curiously enough this was one of the very 
 circumstances which led to the discovery- of 
 the existence of these fishes. Hear Dr. Gun- 
 ther, keeper of the Zoological Department 
 in the British Museum: 
 
 "The knowledge of the existence of deep- 
 sea fishes is one of the recent discoveries of 
 ichthyology. It is only about twenty years 
 ago that, from the evidence afforded by the 
 anatomical structure of a few singular fishes 
 obtained in the xNorth Atlantic, an opinion 
 was expressed that these fishes inhabited 
 great depths of the ocean, and that their 
 organization was specially ' adapted for liv- 
 ing under the physical abyssal conditions. 
 These fishes agreed in the character of their 
 connective tissue, which was so extremely 
 weak as to yield to, and to break under, the 
 the slightest pressure, so that the greatest 
 difficulty is experienced in preserving their 
 
.Depp-sea Flakes. 
 
 45 
 
 body in its continuity. Another singular 
 circumstance was that some of the specimens 
 were picked up floating on the surface of the 
 water, having met their death whilst engaged 
 in swallowing or digesting another tish not 
 much inferior or even superior in size to them- 
 selves. The first peculiarity was accounted 
 for by the fact that if these fishes really in- 
 habited the great depths supposed, their re- 
 moval from the enormous pressure under 
 which they lived would be accompanied by 
 such an expansion of the gases within their 
 tissues as to rupture them and to cause a sep- 
 aration of the parts which had been held 
 together by the pressure. The second cir- 
 cumstance was explained thus: A raptatorial 
 lish, organized to live at a depth of between 
 live hundred and eight hundred fathoms, seizes 
 another, usually inhabiting a depth of between 
 three hundred and five hundred fathoms. In 
 its struggles to escape, the fish seized — nearly 
 as large or strong as the attacking fish — car- 
 ries the latter out of its depth into a higher 
 stratum, where the diminished pressure caus- 
 es such an expansion of gases as to make the 
 destroyer, with its victim, rise with increas- 
 
46 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 ing rapidity toward the surface, which they 
 reach dead or in a dying condition." 
 
 Respecting the disorganization of their 
 bodily tissues by the "expansion of the gas- 
 es" within them, the reviewer says: 
 
 " Their bones and muscles are comparative- 
 ly feebly developed ; the former have a 'fibrous, 
 fissured, and cavernous texture, are light, 
 with scarcely any calcareous matter, so that 
 the point of a needle will readily penetrate 
 them without breaking.' They are loosely 
 attached to each other — the vertebras espe- 
 cially: and unless carefully handled, the body 
 will almost fall to pieces. But that this js 
 not the animal's normal condition we may 
 be well assured. It is due simply to the ab- 
 sence of the pressure which keeps the whole 
 organization compact; for, as has just been 
 stated, most of these fishes are rapacious, and 
 to indulge their voracity (enormous, as we 
 shall presently see) they must execute rapid 
 and powerful movements, to effect which 
 their muscles must be as firm and their ver- 
 tebrae as taughtly braced as in their surface- 
 swimmin^ relatives." 
 
 It is stated that many of these fishes have 
 
Deep-sea Fishes. 
 
 47 
 
 "more or less numerous round, shining, 
 mother-of-pearl colored bodies imbedded in 
 the skin;" "as 'twere in scorn of eyes, re- 
 flecting gems." 
 
 The use of such organs is not known. 
 They are present in those deep-sea fishes 
 which have "well-developed and even large 
 eyes perfectly adapted for seeing in the dark," 
 and also absent in others which have no ex- 
 ternal eyes. They are therefore hardly "ac- 
 cessory eyes." They may be "producers of 
 light" — phosphorescent or otherwise — "in 
 which case it must proceed from the inner 
 cavity, and be emitted through the lens-like 
 body as through a 'bull's-eye' lantern." 
 
 They "display few colors [except one or 
 two species], and gay tints would indeed be 
 useless amid 'the gloom of Tartarus pro- 
 found.' Their body is generally either black 
 or silvery, but the silverness has a most brill- 
 iant sheen, which is preserved even after 
 years of immersion in spirit. A few are 
 'picked out/ as a coach-painter might say, 
 with bright scarlet, either on the fin-rays or 
 the filaments attached thereto." 
 
 Of their voracity this well-nigh incredible 
 
48 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 account is given : "Another remarkable 
 property of some of these creatures — 'that 
 woo the slimy bottom of the deep ' — is a stom- 
 ach so capable of distension that it can hold 
 a prey of twice or thrice the bulk of the de- 
 stroyer! Figures of two of these are given by 
 Dr. Gunther. . . . Even with such a meal 
 they are not always content, for though a fish 
 seven inches and a half long was found in 
 the latter specimen — itself not four inches in 
 length — yet we are told it was tempted to take 
 a bait.' One of the earliest recorded in- 
 stances of this voracity was observed by Mr. 
 Johnson, who wrote as follows of a specimen 
 (of another and very rare species, however) 
 he procured at Madeira, which had been 
 found floating on the surface: 
 
 The man from whom I obtained it stated 
 that he had a fish with two heads, two mouths, 
 four eyes, and a tail growing out of the mid- 
 dle of the back, which had astonished the 
 whole market; and the fishermen one and all 
 declared that they had never met with any 
 thing like it before. At first sight it really 
 did appear to be the monster described, but 
 a short examination brought to light the fact 
 
Deep-sea Fishes. 
 
 49 
 
 that one fish had been swallowed by another, 
 and that the features of the former were 
 seen through the thin, extensible skin of the 
 latter. On extracting the fish that had been 
 swallowed, it proved to have a diameter sev- 
 eral times exceeding that of its enemy, whose 
 stomach it had distended to an unnatural 
 and painful degree.'" 
 
 This process of "swallowing" is precisely 
 like that by which one snake swallows an- 
 other as large as himself. I have seen a 
 king-snake with the half-swallowed body of 
 a moccasin in his jaws, which was both long- 
 er and larger than himself. 
 
 As the reviewer well remarks: "Even the 
 unscientific imagination cannot fail to be 
 aroused at the thought of the dark, cold, and 
 still depths of the sea, lit up only here and 
 there by the fitful gleams of their phospho- 
 rescent inhabitants, which must serve but to 
 render the mysterious gloom more horrid — a 
 gelid, watery Erebus, peopled by submarine 
 furies as fierce as those that tenanted the 
 subterranean realms of classic mythology. 
 "What a contrast to the poet's vision of ocean 
 grottoes 'under the glassy, cool, translucent 
 4 
 
50 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 wave,' haunted by graceful nereids 'sleeking 
 their soft, alluring locks!"' 
 
 I cannot occupy more of the Advocate's 
 space, or I might tell of the "fighting-fish" 
 of Siam, the "climbing perch" of the East 
 Indies, and the group of Silurii from rivers 
 of tropical America flowing into the At- 
 lantic, which travel "during the dry season 
 from a piece of water about to dry up, in 
 quest of a pond of greater capacity," spend- 
 ing sometimes whole nights on dry land on 
 the w r ay. 
 
 But I am almost afraid to have said this 
 much about them. Some of " Uncle Larry's " 
 flock may have spontaneously exclaimed, 
 "What a whopper!" 
 
 V 
 
Two Deaths. 
 
 51 
 
 No. 8. 
 
 TWO DEATHS. 
 
 musings this morning are of a 
 melancholy sort. Death has been 
 speaking to my heart. He is a 
 faithful monitor, an unlovely but a truthful, 
 unfaltering guest, who will not suffer us to 
 forget that we are children of a day. To- 
 day he has broken the tie which held in life 
 a lovely young friend, and uttered a pathetic 
 sermon on the vanity of human hopes and 
 the emptiness of worldly good. 
 
 This is the second voice of the gloonrv 
 preacher. Two months ago he "hurried 
 hence" a very dear friend of ours, a bright 
 and faithful young wife, true and warm-heart- 
 ed, with love like diamond and fidelity like 
 steel ; unchanging amid all outward varia- 
 tions. From her beautiful home, adorned 
 by her graceful and cordial hospitality; from 
 the clinging arms and prayers of those dear 
 ones to whom she was more than vital air; 
 from the prospects of happiness and useful- 
 ness opening so fairly before her, he called 
 
52 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 her away; and our heavy hearts lay in sack- 
 cloth and ashes. Thanks he to God! the 
 consolations of the gospel were abundant. 
 
 And now the dark, chilly presence is among 
 us again; not unexpected; hut who is ever 
 wholly prepared? If human society ever 
 gives a lovely victim, the grim destroyer has 
 had such this time. Beautiful in person, fas- 
 cinating in manner, of marked intellectual- 
 ity, polished and fitted to shine anywhere, 
 with devoted kindred, hosts of friends, an 
 iijviting earthly future — she whose absence 
 makes many a heart ache, and leaves a va- 
 cancy never to be filled, is "beyond the sun." 
 Yes, even yesterday, lingering as for many 
 months, so patiently sweet, so unmurmuring, 
 so submissive, with soul so cloudless and se- 
 rene, so thoughtful and attentive, even with 
 vitality worn to a thread, yet so truly here, 
 and among us, and of us — to-day gone never 
 to be recalled, forever out of our mortal reach. 
 Only the worn frame, lovely in death, its 
 tenant fled to celestial felicity, left to gaze 
 upon a moment, then reverently and tenderly 
 lay "ashes to ashes" in the family burial- 
 place. Ah! "who could bear life's stormy 
 
Two Deaths. 
 
 53 
 
 doom" when thus it comes were it not for 
 "the grace of God that bringeth salvation," 
 which has "brought life and immortality to 
 light?" Blessed hope of eternal day and 
 imperishable good! I shall see these dear 
 young friends again. Unnaturally as it 
 would seem, the bright, freshly - trimmed 
 light of their lives has gone out, while mine 
 yet flickers and holds out, with oil three- 
 fourths gone and growing steadily dimmer 
 at best. But erelong, as I fondly hope, we 
 shall stand together before the blaze of "the 
 uncreated sun in the eternal heaven." In 
 the home of light and life there is "no dark- 
 ness at all/' of death, or sin, or sorrow. 
 
 Some weeks ago I wandered into an old 
 grave-yard long un visited, where sleep the 
 bodies of a number of our ministers. My 
 classmate, who was a brother so gentle, so 
 Keats-like in genius and tenderness, advanc- 
 ing so swiftly along the path of fame, but 
 with still swifter steps ascending the steeps 
 of spirituality and immortality, rests in its 
 sheltering fold. There too lies the old, fa- 
 therly, warm-hearted Irishman, at whose 
 board I long had a seat; and there the chiv- 
 
54 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 alric, polished, impulsive saint, buoyant, full 
 of faith and love, who formed part of our 
 home-circle for several years. They seemed 
 to gather round me again, to rise and look at 
 me with the ancient kindness and hearty 
 welcome of the "days that are no more;" 
 and with them came,' by the associations 
 which their names on the grave-stones awak- 
 ened, two wives of preachers; and I went 
 back over nearly a fourth of a century to the 
 triumphant death-bed of one of them, by 
 which I and my old Irish brother stood, wit- 
 nessing "dying grace" rarely given; for 
 hers had been a "living grace " almost as 
 rare. And all around me w r as flowery and 
 sweet, green with the advancing color of a 
 late spring. I like to go to cemeteries in 
 spring. Let all around be symbolic and pro- 
 phetic of the resurrection. "Thy brother," 
 thy sister, thy loved ones, " shall rise again." 
 Unspeakably precious words! I pity indeed 
 the wretch who buries his dead without hope 
 of resurrection and another life. In hope of 
 such a resurrection, and of "the life which 
 knows no ending — the tearless life" — we 
 have been burying our dead, the faithful, 
 
Two Deaths. 
 
 55 
 
 worn-out servants of Christ, like our dear 
 old Dr. Lee, and the lovely young people 
 tenderly bound to us by ties of sweet associ- 
 ations, upon whose soft cheek the rosy light 
 of youth has so sadly decayed. And from 
 such burials I can go to preach with a more 
 fervent spirit, "Jesus and the resurrection." 
 
56 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 9. 
 
 THE GENERAL CONFERENCE 
 
 OF 1882. 
 
 HAVE saluted on their return the 
 brethren of my district, clerical and 
 lay, who were delegates to the re- 
 cent General Conference. They look well, 
 are in good health, well pleased, and bearing 
 every mark of having been well treated. The 
 splendid region of Middle Tennessee has done 
 them good. Those of them who were used 
 to the short grass of "the fourth district" 
 have been wonderfully refreshed by grazing 
 upon the blue-grass pastures of that fine 
 country, and all hav«e basked in the sunshine 
 of the University of Vanderbilt and the head- 
 quarters of Southern Methodism. Those 
 "head-quarters," it seems, are not like those 
 of General Pope — "in the saddle" — but in a 
 certain "House," which has had great muta- 
 tions of fortune. But so it is, there it stands, 
 upon the camel's hump, rather more settled 
 and solidly anchored than since the war, and, 
 for good or evil, it is head-quarters. Our 
 
General Conference. 
 
 57 
 
 brethren have walked around that bulwark 
 of our Methodist Zion, and told its towers. 
 One of our delegates (not of my district) had 
 special charge of its affairs, and gives a cheer- 
 ful view of its present condition and future 
 prospects. 
 
 But whatever may be true of the "head- 
 quarters" aforesaid, there is no doubt of the 
 welfare of our explorers who have journeyed 
 thither. They are buoyant, in good temper 
 with "the world and the rest of mankind." 
 
 My own impression is that this General 
 Conference of 1882 was, as a whole, a suc- 
 cess. They have made good selections for 
 the episcopal bench, some of them capital, all. 
 of them very good. They might have done 
 five hundred times worse, and doubtless did 
 not lack for temptation. Many Barkises 
 were "willing," while one man elect declined, 
 and another is said to have shrunk with a 
 whole night's struggle. God bless and 
 strengthen that self-distrusting, reluctant 
 brother! Make him a real blessing to the 
 Church by givinghim grace to be " sufficient" 
 for those "things" in contemplation of 
 which any man may tremble ! We are sorry 
 
58 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 to have Dr. Hay good come up missing, but 
 we will wait for him four or eight years— 
 thankfully take four where we would have 
 liked to have six — and gladly excuse those 
 who were anxious to wear the miter, and who 
 vvould have been "perfectly delighted" to 
 have gone up, in the ballotings among the 
 hundreds. 
 
 Wilson and Granbery, Parker and Har- 
 grove — good men and true, strong, fresh, and 
 reliable; they are a transfusion of younger 
 blood into the rather sickly body of the epis- 
 copacy. We predict for them spiritual vic- 
 tories and great usefulness. 
 
 No marked legislation seems to have char- 
 acterized this session. The laity especially 
 are very conservative, and not "given to 
 change." Beyond the Church - extension 
 movement— in which we trust there is much 
 possible good, and the more definite and pro- 
 nounced temperance statute, there is little 
 alteration of the Discipline. As usual, a 
 thousand things were proposed, a multitude 
 of absurdities, a grain of wheat here and 
 there in a bushel of chaff. 
 
 I still believe, as I have always believed, 
 
General Conference. 
 
 59 
 
 that one of the evils of our General Confer- 
 ence sessions, a great cause of useless con- 
 sumption of time, a door of mischief and 
 foolishness, is the "call of the Conferences" 
 daily for so many days for "resolutions," etc. 
 This "mud volcano" ought never to be 
 opened at all. Memorials of Annual Confer- 
 ences should be read and referred, but oth- 
 er propositions ought to go to a "tomb of 
 the Capulets," where a committee of sextons 
 should quietly decide whether the thing pro- 
 posed be worthy of resurrection by a refer- 
 ence, and if so, put it "in the Daily, with the 
 name of the committee to which referred, 
 and hand it to the chairman. A vote of two- 
 thirds might be allowed to bring up a matter 
 for consideration without reference to com- 
 mittee, and no debate be permitted on such 
 a motion. Then only a very important mat- 
 ter — so important on its face — would receive 
 such distinguished notice. One or two hours 
 per diem consumed by reading and referring 
 stuff, is time greatly in excess of what a body 
 can spare in a twenty-five days' session, in 
 w T hich all the interests and work of the 
 Church for four years are to be reviewed, 
 
60 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 and its wants for four years more consid- 
 ered. 
 
 I trust that the next session, at Richmond, 
 in 1886, will have a well-matured set of rules, 
 which will prune off this excrescence upon 
 our organization, long endured in pain. 
 
 I gladly note some improvement in the 
 reports concerning Annual Conference Jour- 
 nals, coming from the Committee on Itin- 
 erancy. With its miserable faultiness (was 
 there ever a poorer thing of its kind?) the 
 Daily has hardly given us half of those 
 reports. I can count up reports of only 
 twenty-four out of thirty-nine Conferences. 
 Our own and the Baltimore are among the 
 missing. " Report hath it" that "the old 
 Baltimore," supposed to have an infallible 
 secretary, and which furnished the two chair- 
 men of the committee (Martin and Rodgers), 
 got a good switching this time about its 
 Journal. The rest of us who have been 
 quadrennially "birched" can enjoy this cas- 
 tigation over trivialities, while believing, as 
 heretofore, that in all that constitutes the 
 real value of a secretary, there is no amend- 
 ment or change needed in Baltimore. The 
 
General Conference. 
 
 61 
 
 feature of improvement I speak of is that 
 there is less of the trivial and hypercritical 
 in the notices of the Annual Conference 
 Journals. 
 
 I believe, for my part, that there has al- 
 ways been an error on this subject in the 
 work of the Committee on Itinerancy. The 
 law requiring the Journals of the Annual 
 Conferences to be sent to the General Con- 
 ference for inspection was manifestly de- 
 signed simply to bring under review at the 
 General Conference the administration of the 
 laws by the Annual Conferences; which are 
 ministerial, not legislative bodies. It never 
 was originally intended, I am bold to assert, 
 that the manner of keeping the records 
 should be the chief subject of review. It is 
 the business of the Annual Conferences, pre- 
 sided over by the Bishops, to see to that; and 
 between the two — Bishops and Conferences- 
 there ought to be competency to see that the 
 proceedings, like those of the Quarterly Con- 
 ferences, "be faithfully recorded." The prac- 
 tice, which has grown up gradually under 
 the direction of martinets, of attempting to 
 force every secretary into one model of jour- 
 
62 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 nalizing, is an impracticable piece of folly 
 which consumes time, produces irritation, 
 and never accomplishes its object. 
 
 The errors of administration ought to be 
 brought out prominently, and corrected with 
 a kind but firm hand; but the attempt to de- 
 stroy the individuality of secretaryship is a 
 mistake, and will be always, as it has been 
 in the past, a failure. 
 
The Thomasites. 
 
 63 
 
 No. 10. 
 
 THE THOMASITES. 
 RAVELING the other morning in 
 a freight- train, I fell in company 
 with a "Thomasite," "soul-sleep- 
 er," " Christadelphian," or something else 
 of that kind. He was a kindly, conceited 
 fellow, who imagined that he had the key of 
 all religions knowledge, and with great com- 
 placency and wearisome iteration, opened that 
 otherwise inaccessible treasure for the delec- 
 tation of strangers. 
 
 I should have been silent when he began 
 to talk, but for the fact that he commenced 
 with scoffing at the doctrine of punishment 
 for sin after this life. That style of thing, is 
 dangerous in its effect on some souls, and for 
 their sake I took a round with him on the 
 foundation of his strange doctrine. It seemed 
 to be amusing and withal interesting to the 
 train conductor, a healthy, tine young fellow, 
 with an open countenance and a smile that 
 smacked of home-life and the thought of 
 mother and sisters. Burns said that " Scotia's 
 
64 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 greatness" sprung out of its home life. I 
 think I see in many young men's faces, as 
 in that of this one, the place whereon the 
 same blessed influence has written a security 
 against spiritual shipwreck and wild wander- 
 ings from the ancient and si tuple faith of the 
 gospel. 
 
 When it was all over, I thought of the odd 
 blindness that makes a man of ordinary com- 
 mon sense overlook the overwhelming evi- 
 dence of the existence of a soul in all men. And 
 how a man who cannot see any thing in his 
 fellow-creatures at large except "animated 
 dust," mere organized matter — who takes his 
 baby in his arms, and except for its possibility 
 of after regeneration, regards it as a prettier 
 sort of kitten or puppy, and if it were to die, 
 would think it had gone to dust just like a 
 puppy and no more — how, I say, such a man 
 can fancy that belief in his views and hold- 
 ing that Christ and his apostles taught them, 
 and immersion in a frog-pond upon profes- 
 sion of such faith can impart eternal life to 
 these soulless creatures (!), is a marvel. It 
 might make the gravest deity in the old 
 "Olympic round" laugh like a circus clown! 
 
The Tkomasites. 
 
 65 
 
 It has long been an impression with me 
 that in the majority of these people "there 
 is a screw loose" intellectually. I do not 
 mean that they are insane, or " cranks," or 
 idiotic; bat they are " speckled birds." They 
 do not think as the majority of men think on 
 any subject. There is a warp and twist about 
 their mental processes — how produced or 
 when, I cannot say — that is peculiar to their 
 class. They are always splitting Churches 
 on some fine-drawn or queer thread of spec- 
 ulation. There is an everlasting defining 
 and dividing going on among them. They 
 resemble a plate of mica — the thing is very 
 thin and slight at first, but, to your sur- 
 prise, it is capable of division laterally; and 
 as you go on experimenting on its laminated 
 structure, you have at last an immense num- 
 ber of broad, elastic, and exceedingly thin 
 scales; and if your sight were keener and 
 your instruments of division sharper, and 
 more delicate, there is no telling whether or 
 not you ever would stop splitting. 
 
 Ah me! The Lord help us! My travel- 
 ing companion had a head that stuck out 
 behind just under the brim of his hat, with 
 
66 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 a sharply marked protrusion. I believe it is 
 there the phrenologists locate self-conceit, 
 and perhaps combativeness. May be phre- 
 nology is half right. Those are the elements 
 of your disputatious champion, full of his 
 dogma, and armed cap-a-pie for an encounter 
 with the rest of mankind. 
 
 I once traveled a circuit in Virginia in 
 which some of the greatest early conquests 
 of Dr. John Thomas were made. While 
 there I heard what I am about to relate. I 
 subsequently became well acquainted with 
 the very eccentric opponent of Thomas, and 
 learned from him the literal truth of the story. 
 It may not be new to the readers of the Ad- 
 vocate, but it is too good to die. The gem of 
 anecdote will bear resetting. 
 
 When the Thomasites became numerous 
 and aggressive, the Presbyterian minister, 
 then settled over a neighboring church — Mr. 
 Watt — who was a man of learning and acute 
 mind, and who had the most singular voice 
 I ever heard — high in pitch, fine, and rather 
 whining in tone, and with a little odd turn 
 to it every now and then, which was at once 
 inimitable and unimaginable — thought it his 
 
The Thomasites. 
 
 67 
 
 duty to "drive away erroneous and strange 
 doctrine" like this from the borders of his 
 congregation, and so preached a strong ser- 
 mon against it on Galatians i. 8. This pro- 
 voked a challenge for a debate (these people 
 live on disputation) with Dr. Thomas himself, 
 which was promptly accepted. The day came, 
 an immense crowd was assembled, a moder- 
 ator appointed, and the debate began. Mr. 
 Watt soon perceived that his antagonist did 
 not have the knowledge of Hebrew with 
 which he was usually accredited, and which he 
 made a great show of possessing ; and so, after 
 challenging him to read a passage out of the 
 Hebrew Bible at random (which was cau- 
 tiously declined), felt the more confidence in 
 attacking his criticisms of the original words 
 translated "soul" in the Old Testament. 
 Thomas had asserted that so far from mean- 
 ing a spiritual, immaterial, immortal princi- 
 ple, these words often meant " air," " breath," 
 "perfume'' even; and making the blunder 
 of connecting with the word in dispute an- 
 other word, "bottles" (e. g., "bottles" of 
 perfume), he averred with some flourish in 
 marking the absurdity of the common view, 
 
68 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 that the word so patly rendered "soul" even 
 meant "a smelling-bottle! " 
 
 When Watt came to reply, he first serious- 
 ly refuted the false criticism, and showed its 
 source in the ignorance of the pretentious re- 
 former; and carrying the war into Africa, he 
 gave examples of what would follow from 
 such interpretation. Opening at the forty- 
 second Psalnl he read, with that remarkable 
 and unique voice at its highest pitch, and 
 with its queerest turn, "Why art thou cast 
 down, O my smelling-bottle! and why art 
 thou disquieted within me?" The effect was 
 instantaneous and overwhelming. Thomas 
 sprung to his feet and said, "You are beat- 
 ing the air, sir!" "No," retorted Watt, "I 
 am beating Dr. John Thomas, and beating 
 him well!" 
 
 It may be safely said that Thomasism never 
 recovered from that blow. The young men 
 of the county, full of fun, rang the changes 
 on Watt's citation from Psalms. Careless 
 about the fact that the antagonists were dis- 
 cussing Hebrew, not Greek, and thinking 
 only how absurd the thing could be made 
 when applied to any part of the Bible, they 
 
The Thomasites. 
 
 69 
 
 took up the New Testament, and read, 
 "What shall it profit a man if he gain the 
 whole world and lose his own smellinff-bot- 
 tie?" and read and laughed, and laughed 
 and read, for many a day. 
 
 There still linger in those regions a few 
 Thomasite families, but they are hopelessly 
 dwindling. No resurrection or revival awaits 
 them. Like the bodies of the wicked, ac- 
 cording to their theory, they are bound to 
 extinction, and no baptism will give them 
 eternal life. 
 
70 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 11. 
 
 COUNTRY CHURCH-YARDS. 
 OME time since at a country church 
 I noticed near by an in closure 1 of 
 white palings around about half 
 an acre of ground. On inspection it proved 
 to be a grave-yard. 
 
 The people of that vicinity had discovered 
 the value of a common burial-place for their 
 church community. Their dead were no 
 longer to be scattered over a wide neighbor- 
 hood, at neglected and forsaken private bury- 
 ing-places, but were to be collected into a 
 receptacle near their house of worship, al- 
 ways in sight when the worshipers assembled 
 at the house of God; their remains protected 
 from desecration, and laid away in squares 
 and lots green and fresh looking even in 
 winter, and beautified with ornamental shrubs 
 and flowers. I have seen some other move- 
 ments of the same kind. I hail them with 
 great joy, and hope to seethe practice obtain 
 universally. 
 
 I hope I shall live to see a cemetery at 
 
Country Church-yards. 
 
 71 
 
 almost every Methodist church in the coun- 
 try. 
 
 Very beautiful are the grave -yards near 
 the old Presbyterian and Lutheran and other 
 churches in the Valley of Virginia. As I write 
 I think of one near the "Blowing Cave." 
 As the stage turned down the slanting road 
 and the "westering" sun glistened from the 
 Cow Pasture (or may be it is the Calf Pas- 
 ture) River, the white grave-stones gleamed 
 out of the grassy sod, and added a charm of 
 sacred rest to the scenery. Unmolested, and 
 yet unforgotten and guarded, the "forefa- 
 thers of the hamlet" slept around the house 
 of God — "the God not of the dead but of 
 the living, for all live unto him." Alive 
 for evermore! "absent from the body," but 
 "present with the Lord," the deceased saints 
 of that region looked down from heavenly 
 heights upon the place where their flesh rest- 
 ed in hope, and nothing in the scene could 
 have offended their sanctified tastes or caused 
 disgust toward their "parted friends still in 
 the vale confined," struggling in the warfare 
 with the world of ungodliness. E"o such 
 pleasing memory remains of many a bury- 
 
72 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 ing-place which I have seen in my wander- 
 ings. 
 
 Occasionally as I look from the windows of 
 the fast-moving train, shooting over valleys 
 and through cut hills, my eyes fall on a melan- 
 choly spot. The thick-growing sassafras or 
 gum, the wild plum or thorn, untrained and 
 mi trimmed, in rank and forbidding luxuri- 
 ance, marks a spot denied to agriculture; 
 whether a rock-pile or a "snakery " might be 
 doubtful were it not that the remnants of a de- 
 caying plank fence or paling, from which all 
 traces of paint have vanished, proclaim that it 
 is a so-called grave-yard. There is no memorial 
 of the dead, no dates or names. Close search 
 might reveal some rough head and foot- 
 stones, taken from the field hard by and " set 
 up " when the graves were filled. The space 
 between them hints as to the age (by the 
 height) of the dead. These short graves hold 
 " somebody's darlings." That long one yon- 
 der may be a patriarch of the group, or a 
 tall youth fallen in the prime of his hopeful 
 life. But the place has been sold away from 
 its original owners; scarcely anybody around 
 could tell about them, and soon nobody will 
 
Country Church-yards. 73 
 
 know or care; and the besom of decay and 
 neglect will sweep away all traces of a "re- 
 served " burying-place. 
 
 In her childhood and youth my mother, 
 who was an orphan, had a very dear friend 
 who was a mother to her. That lady, of 
 good family, of fair possessions, of a wide 
 connection, was buried in an old family bury- 
 ing-place, on the land of my brother-in-law, 
 "reserved" in all the deeds of conveyance. 
 My mother, when on her death-bed, desired 
 that her body might be laid near the grave 
 of her faithful and revered friend. She would 
 sleep also in a few hundred yards of the cham- 
 ber of her only daughter. We complied with 
 her wish asfaras possible; butthoughlessthan 
 forty years had elapsed, nobody could point 
 out the grave of that noble woman. Her son, 
 a Venerable and infirm man, was still alive, at 
 the distance of five or six miles, but had not 
 been to the neighboring village for a long 
 while. Possibly he could have guessed where 
 it was. Possibly my mother in her life had 
 ventured a guess of the same kind while 
 walking under the honey-locusts and per- 
 simmons. That old man is gone, all his 
 
74 Recreations of a Presiding Eider. 
 
 generation are probably gone; which of the 
 obscure and fast-sinking stones once set up at 
 the head and foot mark her resting-place 
 there is probably none upon earth that can 
 tell. The uninclosed common — beaten by 
 feet of sheep and ox, unlike the surrounding 
 pasture only in that it has some trees and 
 sunken spaces, with singular obstructive 
 stones here and there — hides the dust of a 
 noble lady of refinement, comparative wealth, 
 character, and a wide circle of kindred of 
 great respectability! The resurrectionist's 
 spade or the archangel's trump will be re- 
 quired to identify her grave! The graves of 
 the grandfather and grandmother of a dis- 
 tinguished American general are in a little 
 corner of outlying field between two roads 
 just beyond Farmville. The English gentle- 
 man now owning the farm made an offer 
 concerning the rescue of that place from ob- 
 literation, which he informed me was not 
 responded to. His plow runs up to the tan- 
 gled wild of plum-bushes, rock-piles, and run- 
 ning briers — annually contracting — which 
 distinguishes the resting-place of the old 
 people. In a few years, I think, their bones 
 
Country Church-yards. 75 
 
 will sleep under the tilled glebe, forgotten 
 and forsaken till Christ comes. Somewhere 
 along the course of the old road from Suffolk 
 to Portsmouth lie the bones of Robert Will- 
 iams, the first Methodist preacher that ever 
 spoke the words of eternal life in Virginia. 
 It is barely possible (though improbable) that 
 he was buried in the old church-yard at 
 Benn's, but otherwise the conjecture of Dr. 
 Bennett is probably correct — that the plow- 
 boy whistles his jocund air, as all unconscious 
 he drives his share over the dust of the holy 
 and great pioneer of Methodism! 
 
 Let us make these calamitous accidents 
 impossible hereafter by making and main- 
 taining at all our country churches a "God's 
 acre," beautiful and well inclosed — if possi- 
 ble, with brick or stone. Let it be laid out 
 in seemly and attractive style. Let the 
 women, those ministers of grace and beauty 
 in every community, see that it is planted 
 with evergreens and adorned with flowering 
 shrubs and plants. Grant each family a plat. 
 There let each church-community bury its 
 dead; not as the criminal and suicide — "at 
 the forks of a road, with a stake in his 
 
76 Recreations of a Presiding Elder 
 
 heart " — but so that the lost may be "bad 
 in remembrance," and their last resting- 
 place be hallowed above common ground 
 forever more. 
 
The Quarter Stretch. 
 
 77 
 
 No. 12. 
 THE QUARTER STRETCH. 
 
 HEN" I was a boy my father lived 
 in a country village. iTear it, in a 
 certain year, there was established 
 a race-course. The " sporting" propensities 
 of the community at length reached that 
 height. There had been gamblers in it " of 
 old time;" there were some connoisseurs in 
 horse-flesh. The racing mania was then at 
 its height in the United States. "Boston" 
 was about retiring on his glory as an un- 
 equaled Virginia steed. With the cultiva- 
 tion of some local celebrities in the way of 
 fast animals and the preparation of the course 
 lor the regular "races," there was much ex- 
 citement among the juniors of every family. 
 My father did not allow us to attend races; 
 but in our excursions to the woods and fish- 
 ing, and the like, we took the race-track in 
 the way coming back, and walked around 
 the stables, saw the celebrated animals, and 
 looked at the wonderful circle itself, with its 
 judges' stand, etc. And on race-days some 
 • 
 
78 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 of ns mounted to the top of the house, and, 
 little affected by the splendid mountain scen- 
 ery that stretched off, under a glorious sky, 
 before our eyes, bent our gaze, with true fall- 
 en proclivities, upon the earth and its distant 
 race-course. There we had occasional glimps- 
 es of the hotly- contested field, as a group of 
 flying horses, with trim mountings, and jock- 
 eys bent forward over their necks, flashed 
 across the line of our strained vision. Now 
 and then they were "neck to neck." Re- 
 port said, in many a case, breathlessly told, 
 that "a blanket could have been laid on both 
 as they ran." From our house-top aerie one 
 very important part of the track came into 
 view. They called it the "quarter stretch." 
 It was the last fourth of a mile before the 
 judges' stand was reached. Victory hung 
 upon that "stretch." Often it was snatched 
 from a favorite animal in that quarter of a 
 mile. If, when the foremost horse passed 
 the stand, any unfortunate animal was be- 
 hind a certain point in that stretch, they said 
 he was "distanced," and he could run no 
 more in any " heat " of that race. (I remem- 
 ber the intense astonishment, mortification, 
 
 I 
 
The Quarter Stretch. 79 
 
 and disgust we boys felt when it was an- 
 nounced that 4 'Hard Cider" — -a village nag 
 of great popularity with us, as we viewed 
 daily his sleek black coat and arching neck 
 "clothed with thunder" — had been actually 
 "distanced" in his first race! That was also 
 his last. He was a doomed animal from that 
 time. He was condemned to ignominious 
 pulling in a wagon team.) 
 
 As I have been proceeding on this fourth 
 round of quarterly-meetings, that old race- 
 course has occurred to me, and furnished an 
 image of things ecclesiastical. We are on 
 the " quarter stretch !" The last two furlongs 
 of our ecclesiastical-year track are, in part, 
 past already. Swift feet hurry along the fa- 
 tal "stretch." Spiritually, financially, cler- 
 ically, we are putting forth all our powers 
 for victory or defeat. By the 15th of No- 
 vember every preacher, every church, every 
 circuit, and every station will have passed 
 the judges' stand triumphant or "second 
 best," or, it may be, will have hauled up 
 " distanced," disgraced, and, leaping the side- 
 rail in disgust, have made off for the stable 
 of some subterfuge or poor excuse. What 
 
80 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 whipping and spurring of stewards to " bring 
 up" deficiencies in payments; what plung- 
 ing and kicking and rearing of obstinate, 
 stingy, and unfaithful members under the 
 lively persuadings of the officials; what rac- 
 ing and reaching after lost opportunities and 
 fleeing hopes of preachers and workers of all 
 sorts; what panting and blowing and heav- 
 ing of overworked people of every class, aim- 
 ing to do the work of six months in one, 
 does this old "quarter stretch" witness! It 
 has seen the like, perhaps worse, for many a 
 year. 
 
 On one side the sight is suggestive of good. 
 It is well for faithful men, even at the last 
 time, and with a slim chance of success, to 
 attempt the retrieving of a state of affairs 
 which has been brought about by the unbe- 
 lief and neglects and sins of others. It is a 
 noble thing in that noble band of men that 
 never bowed the knee to any Baal of world- 
 liness or idolatry, when they resolve, if pos- 
 sible, to save a battle about to be lost by the 
 treachery of a membership which cannot be 
 depended upon. They will have one more 
 protracted- meeting; they will make one 
 
The Quarter Stretch. 
 
 81 
 
 more effort to begin a Sunday- school ; they 
 will make sacrifices to see the preacher paid 
 in full, and not suffer the collections to fall 
 behind; they will stir up their hearts once 
 more to infuse into the body ecclesiastic some 
 life and vi^or and ardor in Christ's cause. 
 Faithful souls, may God's blessing abide 
 with you! If all the members of the Church 
 were like you, the country would, spiritual- 
 ly speaking, " blossom as the rose." And 
 you have your reward. Sometimes it is of 
 success. The inert and faithless cannot with- 
 stand your fervid piety. They are aroused, 
 and do wonderfully better than was expect- 
 ed; and at the last moment, when failure 
 seems imminent, there is poured out a bless- 
 ing which there is not room to contain. Or 
 if failure in some degree comes anyhow, its 
 force is in a measure broken; there is a 
 foundation for future steps of recovery ; 
 there is a seed of hope and cheerfulness left; 
 and the answer of a good conscience, in your 
 cases, sweetens the bitterness of default. 
 
 But other reflections are awakened as we 
 look at the "quarter stretch" struggle, espe- 
 cially at its financial side. Why should this 
 6 
 
82 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 annual effort be necessary? Why will men 
 deliberately put off what they know must be 
 done, and that erelong, or else failure will en- 
 sue? I venture a few guesses at the why : 99 
 1. Some do not believe there is disgrace 
 in failure. It does not hurt them for the 
 preacher to be deficient upon his small sala- 
 ry. He can stand it; has been standing it a 
 long time. He and his family know how to 
 pinch. He has done faithful work; if not 
 perfect in its excellence, it is very good for 
 the price. He has gone, in wet and dry 
 weather, preaching, visiting, and administer- 
 ing discipline. His allowance is very neces- 
 sary for his support, but he can manage to 
 pay one-sixth of it himself. True, the rich- 
 est man on the circuit has never been guilty 
 of half such liberality in support of the gos- 
 pel, but he is not a preacher, and is supposed 
 to be unequal to such a stretch of grace. 
 And it is no mortification to have Dalefield 
 Circuit read out at Conference as giving four 
 dollars to Foreign Missions and one dollar 
 and a half to Domestic Missions, and one- 
 third of the assessment for Conference Col- 
 lection and Educational and Bishops' funds. 
 
The Quarter Stretch. 
 
 83 
 
 One of the stewards has already asked the 
 presiding elder if he does not think they- 
 could get about one or two hundred dollars 
 appropriation from the Domestic Mission 
 lioard. They do not mind being pilloried 
 in the "Minutes." The truth is, they do not 
 often see the "Minutes." The preacher had 
 a hard time selling his nine copies this year. 
 So they have taken eleven months and twen- 
 ty days to find out what they could do, and 
 have not maintained, in actual execution, 
 the standard of their conjecture made at that 
 late day. It will make very little difference 
 whether they do or not, especially a hundred, 
 years from this time. 
 
 2. Some lack system, and do not act with 
 any method. If they would be precise, and. 
 ascertain regularly what they can do, and 
 begin to do it early in the year, they would 
 accomplish more, vastly more, and do it with 
 much greater ease. The race would be w r on 
 before the "quarter stretch" w^as reached, 
 and they would simply have to draw rein 
 and gallop victoriously, at an easy pace, over 
 that famous ground. I am satisfied that this 
 is the evil factor in a multitude of cases. 
 
84 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 Acting on principle, and acting systematic- 
 ally, would cure many evils in spiritual and 
 financial matters. Especially would it cure 
 this straining and gasping in the attempt to 
 meet expenses. If every man would "lay 
 by him in store as God has prospered him 
 every week, or determine by some other plan 
 how much exactly he can venture to give, 
 and give it steadily and statedly, there would 
 be no need for such breathless exertions to 
 raise comparatively small amounts. In some 
 cases the preacher cultivates system in his 
 membership with respect to the "collec- 
 tions," while the stewards practice irregular- 
 ity among themselves, and confirm the peo- 
 ple in their lack of method with respect to 
 the preacher's salary; and so, at the " quarter 
 stretch" he has his collections in hand, and 
 they leave such a faithful man of God not 
 only in danger of loss, but often actually de- 
 ficient, by their accumulated arrears. Spur- 
 ring and whipping over the " stretch" will not 
 save the race. And sometimes such a preach- 
 er is told, for his consolation, that if he had 
 not raised money for missions, etc., he would 
 have got his own pay! 
 
The Quarter Stretch. 
 
 85 
 
 3. There is a great deal of dead wood in 
 our membership. I think as a body we have 
 less attachment to our Church than any oth- 
 er people. There is less Church pride among 
 us. We do not feel stung as others do when 
 comparisons are made to our disadvantage. 
 We have managed somehow to get into our 
 membership many people who have little or 
 no religion, no zeal, no sense of personal re- 
 sponsibility to God and the Church, little in- 
 telligence, less information about religious 
 matters; who lie still to be acted upon, 
 preached at, scolded, stirred up ; an inert, 
 lethargic mass, "at ease in Zion." I believe 
 we would be better if the whole of such mem- 
 bership were cut off. But, as we retain it, it 
 forms a basis of calculation and expectation. 
 We seem to have so many members and so 
 much property and resources. But that part 
 of our ecclesiastical tree is dead. It does 
 not sprout a branch or put forth bud or leaf 
 or flower or fruit. These are our habitual 
 neglecters of worship, our chronic grumblers 
 and growlers, our ecclesiastical Bedouins, 
 gambling about to every new thing, the bane 
 of faithful stewards and collectors, the heart- 
 
86 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 sickening of ministers and pious people. 
 The delinquencies of such "sons of Belial" 
 are to be anticipated, but it is not so easy to 
 provide against them. A steward in tow of 
 such people resembles Elliott, in " South 
 Carolina Sports," convoying an immense 
 load of harpooned devil-fish. After immense 
 toil, paying out line, rowing and pulling 
 against tide and wind, at the critical moment 
 his harpoon pulls out of the disgusting mass, 
 and it sinks out of sight by its own weight. 
 He has "toiled all night, and caught " worse 
 than "nothing." He cannot even "make a 
 show openly" of his dead monster. 
 
 But enough of this. When this sees the 
 light of print we shall have run our year's 
 race. In " Conference assembled. " we will be 
 reviewing the irrevocable past and planning 
 for our new year. 
 
 Reader, consider these things. If you 
 have had any part in causing the difficulties 
 of the "quarter stretch," amend forthwith. 
 
Unconscious Selfishness. 
 
 87 
 
 j 
 
 No. 13. 
 
 UNCONSCIOUS SELFISHNESS, 
 
 mm 
 
 iMIlll 
 
 of the perplexing problems of 
 practical life is the case of men, 
 otherwise good, out of whose living 
 there crops here and there an offensive and 
 sometimes disgusting selfishness. What are 
 w T e to think of them? How hard it is, es- 
 pecially for generous, true-hearted, self-sac- 
 rificing men to believe the piety of these men 
 to be genuine! To recognize their religion 
 seems like indorsing the devil's paper. Yet, 
 while in their faults they "offend" every 
 right-minded man to the point ofttimes of 
 awakening a hoi}' indignation, they are in 
 many features unmistakably good and devout. 
 If ministers of the gospel, they maybe labori- 
 ous, eloquent, earnest, spiritually-minded in 
 most things; if laymen, upright, honest, ami- 
 able, zealous for religion and morality, un- 
 spotted in domestic and social relations. To 
 condemn them utterly is to adopt a standard 
 which sooner or later will destroy every man's 
 hopes; for who is not faulty? who is without 
 
88 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 serious blemishes? whose motives are always 
 of the purest and loftiest type in every thing? 
 We allow that they are pious; and sometimes 
 affecting proofs of this come out of their 
 private papers or secret histoiw. But we 
 feel tempted to withdraw the admission of 
 their claims to piety when we run foul of 
 their weakness. It is an unlovely type of 
 character. 
 
 We once knew a man of a devout and most 
 serious cast. He was a man of prayer and 
 of purest living in the prominent features of 
 his behavior. He was a minister, and at- 
 tained, great eminence as a preacher. His 
 eloquence, fervor, and power w T ere unexcelled. 
 He held the soundest views of theology and 
 experimental religion. Being well acquainted 
 with him, we mentioned in his presence our in- 
 tention to journey in a certain direction. He, 
 it seems, wasaboutchanginghis residence, and 
 with his whole family going in the same direc- 
 tion. He at once expressed great pleasure 
 that we were to be fellow-travelers-; but he 
 presently unfolded the reason. He mentioned, 
 with perfect artlessness, that w T e could render 
 him a service at starting, in a matter which 
 
Unconscious Selfishness. 
 
 89 
 
 threatened to be burdensome. Musing a 
 little, he bethought himself of another place 
 where we could also do him a like service. 
 And renewing his expression of pleasure at 
 our going, he did not say a syllable besides, nor 
 afterward when we met, indicating that he 
 had ever taken another view of our going 
 than that of an unexpected service to him- 
 self. He was glad that we were going as a 
 man when his shoes are soiled would be glad 
 to meet a boot-black, with a fair chance to 
 have the boot-black's services gratuitously 
 rendered. It was amusing — the innocent 
 simplicity of the whole thing — but it was 
 also provoking. 
 
 A commoner form of this evil is the forma- 
 tion of a habit of so acting that we make the 
 impression upon our fellow-men that there is 
 some ulterior object of a selfish nature in every 
 thing we do. People learn to think, we edu- 
 cate them to think, that we never speak or act 
 from the unstudied impulse of an open, can- 
 did nature. They are led, whether or no, to 
 look below our words and acts — the most 
 trivial or ordinary — for some deeper or more 
 real meaning. 
 
90 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 The late Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of 
 Oxford in the English Establishment, a son 
 of the great William Wilberforce, seems to 
 have been such a man. Of great abilities in 
 every respect, especially as a preacher, and 
 despite his errors and defects, a man of a de- 
 vout and truly penitent and believing frame 
 of mind, he succeeded in setting even such a 
 man as Prince Albert thoroughly against 
 him. That nobleman — worthy nephew of 
 King Leopold, worthy consort of such a 
 Queen as Victoria — had, in the course of fif- 
 teen years' acquaintance with Wilberforce, 
 come to this judgment, expressed to the Earl 
 of Aberdeen : " He does every thing for some 
 object. He has a motive for all his conduct." 
 And by this he meant to express "a suspi- 
 cion " as to the Bishop's " sincerity and disin- 
 terestedness." 
 
 Bishop Wilberforce is unfortunately not 
 alone in this respect. A number of illus- 
 trations come to our remembrance of just 
 such men. After sufficient acquaintance (al- 
 though our first impressions may have been 
 like Prince Albert's of Samuel Wilberforce, 
 at his speech in Exeter Hall, June 1, 1841), 
 
Unconscious Selfishness. 
 
 91 
 
 we become satisfied that these people "do 
 every thing for some object." We sometimes 
 see plainly what that object is; but when we 
 do not, we are none the less satisfied that 
 something ulterior is lurking in the private 
 counsels of our plausible and polite, and per- 
 haps highly-accomplished, brother. In the 
 political phraseology of the day, he is "mak- 
 ing a slate;" and in that "slate" we may be 
 sure that his own interest occupies a central 
 position. Such men appear to be incapable 
 of understanding the apostolic direction, "In 
 honor preferring one another." They are 
 always thinking, behind all their speeches 
 and acts that do not appear to mean this, of 
 how to take care of themselves to the best 
 advantage. The indulgence and cultivation 
 of this spirit prepare the way for the occa- 
 sional lapses into more open and downright 
 selfishness by which some end is gained. 
 Then the sin is more palpable, and probably 
 ceases to be what we have termed "uncon- 
 scious." 
 
 Much of this unworthy spirit is, beyond 
 all doubt, not understood in its true nature 
 by the man who is possessed by it. Like 
 
92 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 men under the dominion of covetousness and 
 egotism, the victim has given his blemish a 
 flattering name, and thinks of it under the 
 glamour of that deceptive title. We have 
 known men exacting sacrifices of everybody 
 in their families and making none themselves, 
 who imagined that they were patterns of 
 domestic loveliness. We have seen exacting, 
 fretful women whom nothing could please, 
 who supposed themselves to be the most 
 amiable companions in the world. We have 
 known preachers always maneuvering for 
 soft places, hinting for favors, taking " short 
 cuts" upon a competing brother, and not 
 objecting to a little self-advertising, who have 
 reviewed the whole process in a "little Jack 
 Horner" spirit, and wound up the transac- 
 tion with Jack's reflection: "What a nice 
 boy am I!" Could these people, and all 
 others who belong to this line of business, 
 see themselves faithfully reflected in one of 
 the mirrors that may exist, for all we know, 
 in another world but do not in this, they 
 would be equally annoyed and confounded. 
 
 The reader will "suffer a word of exhor- 
 tation." Try to be externally exactly what 
 
Unconscious Selfishness. 93 
 
 you design to be internally. The evil spirit 
 will tempt you to lay on a gloss of some sort, 
 You must be polite, obliging, politic, suave, 
 if you would do good; and in order to this, 
 concealment of some kind is necessary. Men 
 cannot afford to show their thoughts to every- 
 body. All of which, rightly understood, is 
 sound doctrine; but it is easily perverted. 
 The best way is not to need concealment. 
 Do not be excessively cordial in manner when 
 cool in heart; you will end by being a knave 
 in your selfish hypocrisy, feigning what you 
 never feel. If naturally reserved or distant, 
 try to get rid of that defect, but not by as- 
 suming what you do not feel. One of the 
 very meanest manifestations of a petty self- 
 ishness is an assumption of universal and ever- 
 present cordiality for the purpose of winning the 
 good-will of our fellow-men. Do not gush, 
 when the stream of disinterested love in your 
 bosom is, as you know, a very tiny streamlet. 
 Wait for a natural "freshet" before you open 
 the flood-gates. Deeply study and try to 
 practice Philippians ii. 4. There are "things 
 of others." Yes, really, there is somebody 
 else in the world besides yourself; and other 
 
94 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 people have "things" in the way of inter- 
 ests, wants, desires, affections, goods. Try 
 to realize it. Cultivate a going out toward 
 them, not a sucking in toward yourself all 
 the time; go out of your way to be accom- 
 modating and obliging; suffer occasionally 
 for another's sake; do not exact all you are 
 entitled to; sit in the shade of obscurity 
 sometimes, of choice, as a matter of personal 
 discipline. A thoroughly unselfish good man 
 is only " a little lower than the angels." 
 Climb toward that height. 
 
Doers of the Word. 
 
 95 
 
 No. 14. 
 
 DOERS OF THE WORD. 
 NTERIXG a church of a sister de- 
 nomination a short time since, we 
 saw over the recess behind the pul- 
 pit the language of James i. 22. Impress- 
 ive sermon! We heard the preacher on the 
 wall — Doers, and not hearers only ! Yes, that 
 is it. The grand old apostle's figure is not 
 bad — of the transient look in the glass, with 
 its " straightway " forgetting " what man- 
 ner of man " it was the mirror reflected. 
 That is what is the matter with great num- 
 bers of the hearers who throng our churches 
 every week — they hear, and that is the end 
 of it; hear and forget, hear and never prac- 
 tice, hear and remain unchanged; thoughts 
 the same, words the same, habits the same, 
 life-principles the same, the view of things 
 unaltered for the temporary intrusion on 
 Sundays of a very different picture. 
 
 How much good doctrine comes forth from 
 our Methodist pulpits, in our cities only, every 
 Sunday ! How much from the country pul- 
 
96 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 pits on every side ! What if all were done, 
 as well as listened to — what rare Christians 
 we should have, what growing, improving, 
 active, faithful men and women ! And why 
 not? Do we not go thither to hear, that we 
 may do? Do we plan in advance only to 
 hear? Do we deny the obligation to prac- 
 tice even more than to hear? 
 
 What a shrinking up at once it would 
 cause of the army of captious and unreason- 
 able critics ! Other business — urgent busi- 
 ness — for them! Doing the word; ah, that 
 would fill heart and hands! No time for 
 cool and merciless objections to this man's 
 style and that man's manner, to this preach- 
 er's education and that preacher's mode of 
 preparation. Let him take care of himself. 
 " To his own Master he standeth or falleth." 
 Enough for us, and more than enough, to be 
 taking care of ourselves! What a stock al- 
 ready laid up of duty known but not per- 
 formed, of truth enforced npon us but never 
 illustrated in our lives, of errors to be cor- 
 rected, of bad habits to be renounced, of 
 good deeds to be clone ere "the night com- 
 eth " — the night " when no man can work." 
 
Doers of the Word. 
 
 97 
 
 What a stirring in the army of drones ! 
 What a buzzing of wings and putting forth 
 of feet and arms ! What another shaking in 
 " the valley of dry bones ! " is~o more sleep, 
 no more dullness — inattentive, phlegmatic ! 
 So much to be done presents itself, that there 
 is no space for these by-gone amusements or 
 torpors. Up, and be doing, thou sluggard ! 
 Spiritual paralysis has well-nigh smitten you. 
 When was it that you ever did any thing? 
 You hear — in your sort — every Sunday, but 
 on what day do you practice what you hear? 
 What can the preacher count upon you for? 
 
 It so happened when we last sat in this 
 same church for a short time, it was at a 
 marriage. We do not remember so much 
 about noticing that inscription on the wall 
 then. But this last time it was at a funeral. 
 In connection with all. the solemn surround- 
 ings, the habiliments of mourning, the cof- 
 fin — flower-covered, but a coffin still; the 
 solemn hymns and prayers; how soul-pierc- 
 ing those words on the wall ! They needed 
 not "a man's hand over against the candle- 
 stick" to be writing them. 
 
 How differently we hear or read at differ- 
 7 
 
98 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 ent times ! In eternity we will do some mo- 
 mentous remembering. Let us turn over a 
 new leaf in this matter of hearing. "Not 
 hearers only" — no, God forbid! — but "doers 
 of the word." 
 
The Tunnel of Death. 99 
 
 No. 15. 
 THE TUNNEL OF DEATH, 
 
 TUNNEL with light at both ends." 
 So a friend of ours in momentary 
 expectation of departure out of 
 this life, called death. The physician in at- 
 tendance — a non-professor, as so many of his 
 calling are, but should not be — wrung his 
 hands, and with a look of the deepest con- 
 cern, said he " would give worlds for such a 
 faith ! ; ' 
 
 The saying is true. Death to Christians, 
 as to other men, is untried. All within the 
 entrance is dark, gloomy, and forbidding. 
 The trains which pass in with human pas- 
 sengers have never returned. Neither voice 
 nor signal comes through the Plutonian 
 darkness. In that respect, 
 
 Love may haunt the grave of love, 
 And watch the mold in vain. 
 
 All is lighted on this side. Busy, excited, 
 interested spectators pass and repass in the 
 full blaze of day. Is there also light at the 
 
100 Recreations of a Presiding Meier. 
 
 other end? Do the passengers sit only a short 
 time in the darkness and listen to the rum- 
 bling wheels on which they make transition 
 from one world to the other ? Do they pres- 
 ently break out into light and beauty on that 
 other side ? 
 
 So the Christian firmly believes. As he be- 
 lieves on Jesus Christ, he believes on him as 
 a risen and exalted Lord. " He lives who 
 once was dead." That Saviour " entered 
 the grave in mortal flesh; " he went through 
 the tunnel. He alone — save the few whom he 
 raised from the dead more than eighteen 
 hundred years ago— has come back through it. 
 He reports the light on the other side, and we 
 " have believed his report." As thoroughly 
 as we " receive the witness of men " about 
 tunnels we have never gone through, we re- 
 ceive the witness of God, the Son, which is 
 " greater," more reliable than that testimony 
 of men. And in this we have an immense 
 advantage over men who tremble and doubt 
 and fear. By this faith death is deprived of 
 its sting, the grave of its victory. We fear 
 not to die; we yield up our spirits at our 
 Lord's command, expecting to " see light in 
 
The Tunnel of Death. 101 
 
 his light," at the other end of the tunnel of 
 death. There we " shall see him as he is," 
 and with him see 
 
 Those angel faces smile 
 Which we have loved and lost the while. 
 
 " For we know that if our earthly house 
 of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have 
 a building of God, a house not made with 
 hands, eternal in the heavens." Such knowl- 
 edge is invaluable in its power to sustain and 
 cheer. It silences all the tormenting ques- 
 tionings which otherwise, with their ceaseless 
 din, distract our souls in every moment of re- 
 flection. 
 
 "What after death for me remains?" 
 Who that rejects Christianity can answer 
 such a question satisfactorily ? Peering into 
 the abyss of darkness into which sweeps 
 down the endless procession of mortal men, 
 their works and their hopes, what light can 
 he pretend to see glimmering ever so faintly 
 out of the dread shade ? If self-deceived, 
 the Christian is happy in his delusion. He 
 will be as well off in any event, certainly no 
 worse in any respect, for the delusive conso- 
 lations which cannot — says the unbeliever — 
 
102 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 be realized beyond the grave. Whatever the 
 truth (and of this we have on our side all 
 that men have longed, prayed, and hoped 
 for), it is better to believe that we are going 
 through a tunnel bounded at each end by 
 life and light than sinking into a bottomless 
 horror of gloomy night and endless black- 
 ness. 
 
Starting the Machine. 
 
 103 
 
 No. 16. 
 
 STARTING THE MACHINE. 
 
 HE machine I am going to write 
 about starting is not my pen. That 
 has not been idle, though in this 
 present name and form it has been in a state 
 of suspended animation for more than a year. 
 [ came in on the " quarter stretch " of 1881- 
 82, and have been dormant in the line of 
 recreations ever since. 
 
 That machine is the presiding eldership in 
 activity. Duly set up in its place by episco- 
 pal authority, oiled and lubricated by the 
 unction of ecclesiastical commendation, with 
 the engineer standing in his place, will the 
 thing move? And when it begins its motion, 
 will its energy expend itself in empty and 
 useless revolutions on an axis, like the wheels 
 of a locomotive spinning around on a greased 
 spot in a steep grade? or will it pull a re- 
 spectable load along, and thunder through 
 the forests by day and light up the darkness 
 of night with its moving fires, and scare up 
 the echoes with its loud blasts? Is it going 
 
104 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 to go, and to some purpose, or not? that's 
 the question. 
 
 The district stewards' meeting will be here 
 in a few days to provide a stated supply of 
 fuel. 
 
 I have no fellow-feeling with the objurga- 
 tions which some rash men among our clergy 
 have poured upon the heads of these breth- 
 ren. True, some of them may have shown 
 a parsimonious proclivity to cutting down 
 salaries; some may have esteemed it "the 
 whole duty of man" (in their estate) to lay 
 all burdens on others, and diminish them as 
 much as possible on their own appointments; 
 some may have meted out to the stranger 
 what they would have thought too little for 
 a favorite and well-known elder; but that is 
 simply to say they are mortal, and we may 
 look for infirmities among them as these are 
 found in the incumbents of the eldership. 
 
 The thing most difficult for them to get rid 
 of — which is an evil — is a lack of sympathy 
 with the officer for whose support they pro- 
 vide. He is a chief shepherd nominally, but 
 in fact he is nobody's pastor; and the man 
 who goes for a broad and liberal policy with 
 
Starting the Machine. 
 
 105 
 
 respect to his preacher's support is not so 
 certain to feel the same principle at work in 
 his breast when the presiding elder is con- 
 cerned. The result is that the salaries of 
 presiding elders have not been so large as 
 the amounts allowed the same man or men 
 of equivalent talent when serving as pastors. 
 A man of tolerable ability in a station has a 
 furnished house and from $1,500 to $2,000 
 salary; while the majority of presiding eld- 
 ers (and some of them have been men of 
 mark) receive $1,400 to $1,800, and provide 
 their own houses and pay their traveling ex- 
 penses over a large district, amounting some- 
 times to nearly $100 per annum. 
 
 The tendency to such lack of sympathy, 
 though in actual practice it may not always 
 prove to be so, is greatest in those charges 
 where the pastor gives the highest satisfac- 
 tion. In such cases the steward is apt to be 
 the reflection of ^a sentiment more or less 
 widely diffused among the people of the 
 charge, that nothing we can do is too good 
 for our pastor, and we ought to do as little as 
 possible for any "outside character," such as 
 a presiding elder or a bishop, with whom our 
 
106 Recreations of a Presiding Eider. 
 
 relation is indirect and has none of the close- 
 ness and tenderness belonging to that which 
 exists between us and our preacher. 
 
 But whether these things be so or not, the 
 stewards will meet, and when the "first 
 round" is duly published, the "tread-mill" 
 — as Dr. Bennett used to call his editorial 
 work — will feel the weekly touch, and more 
 or less the daily pressure of the presiding eld- 
 er's feet, and motion will commence. A 
 year's work will have begun; at least what 
 is "cut out" for a year. We cannot yet 
 know \Vhose feet will this year pause upon 
 the road of life, and whose staggering steps 
 will turn toward the rest where Spiller and 
 Michaels lie in calm repose. It may be one 
 of us who command the main divisions of 
 the working force will fall. God help us to 
 start aright — with holy motives, with a con- 
 secrated spirit, with earnest and brave pur- 
 pose ! If we do not save souls, edify believ- 
 ers and turn sinners to repentance, lead men 
 to holy living and stir up the Church to 
 greater usefulness and more extensive good 
 works of all kinds, our labor will be in vain. 
 
 Sometimes a feeling of faintness comes 
 
Starting the Machine. 
 
 107 
 
 over me as I look forward to the demands 
 and needs of the district in spiritual things. 
 " Who is sufficient for these things ? " What 
 an array of darkness, ignorance, unbelief, 
 backsliding in heart, formalism, pride, selfish- 
 ness, corruption, have my brethren and I to 
 meet and contend with! But "the sword of 
 the Lord and of Gideon" is drawn on our 
 side. We gained somewhat last year. We 
 will stand fast on our vantage-ground, and 
 plan to do valiant things through our Lord 
 and by the power of his might. There is a 
 great deal in beginning promptly and' well. 
 The most popular preacher will mar his ac- 
 ceptability and success by dilatory movements, 
 being always behind, however little. Let us 
 be "on time," and give the great enemy no 
 start of us. 
 
108 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 17. 
 
 THE ITINERANT'S SACRIFICE. 
 EIE preachers newly appointed to my 
 district are just getting into place. 
 Some have come a long distance. 
 
 All of them have been at more or less trouble 
 in removing, not to say any thing of expense 
 (which may or may not be repaid). Loss 
 which cannot be made good is always caused 
 by removal. This worry and damage they 
 usually bear with reasonable cheerfulness. 
 If now and then they fret a little or inward- 
 ly chafe, it is not to be wondered at; for 
 then, perhaps, they are most keenly remind- 
 ed of what is the sacrifice of the itinerancy. 
 Then they feel — and with it the iron enters 
 their soul — that they have not, and never 
 can have, a home. Very comfortable sojourn- 
 ing-places they have in many instances; but 
 no spot to call their own, to adorn, to make 
 sweet with little things which, small in them- 
 selves, shall have delightful associations, to 
 leave behind to the wife and children that 
 survive. The few very fortunate ones may 
 
The Itinerant's Sacrifice. 
 
 109 
 
 comfort their hearts — it* that will comfort — 
 with the thought that, when they are dis- 
 abled or dead, enough is laid up with which 
 to buy a home and settle the household. To 
 the family it is a rather sorrowful view that 
 home begins where joy ends, that settlement 
 is possible when a last breaking up has oc- 
 curred. And the greater part have no such 
 consolation. With a heart strengthened by 
 faith in the Divine Providence, with an eye 
 cleared from the natural dimness of tears by 
 habitual looking at unseen things, they calm- 
 ly gaze along the empty line of vision, which 
 is unbroken by any ••cottage in this wilder- 
 ness'" this side of or beyond the spot where 
 in anticipation they see the mound of grass 
 or red mold that marks the end of their ca- 
 reer. This is the sacrifice of itinerants. 
 
 To preach for a small salary, to live under 
 disadvantages for the education of children, 
 to change residence often, and sometimes 
 from a healthy to an unhealthy climate, 
 to be dependent upon unappreeiative and 
 at times disagreeable people for a living 
 — these are trials and things to be borne, 
 when borne at all, for Christ's sake; but 
 
110 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 all of them have some mitigation. This oth- 
 er has none. 
 
 The poorest laborer may rent his house, 
 and, while health and industry last, may 
 keep possession of the spot he has learned to 
 love as home. By economy and the aid of 
 building associations the poorest man may 
 gradually found for himself a refuge that 
 shall have as much permanence as the insta- 
 bility of human affairs will allow. I have 
 seen here and there, in city and country, 
 those sweet little domestic nests in various 
 stages of progress — some lovely with the ac- 
 cumulations of years and the ingenuity of 
 loving hearts; some showing signs of the 
 rawness of a new enterprise, a recent if hope- 
 ful beginning. 
 
 For the bulk of our preachers no such 
 prospect discloses itself, even to a fertile im- 
 agination. And to be homeless; to know that 
 never during life will there be a permanent 
 spot, however humble, around which may 
 cluster home affections, and on which may 
 be lavished the outlay of hand and heart,; 
 and that after death the loved ones who sur- 
 vive us will have no place to take shelter in 
 
The Itinerant's Sacrifice. Ill 
 
 from the clouds of bereavement and the 
 storms of adversity — this is hard to bear. To 
 enter upon such a life is to make, humanly 
 speaking, a great sacrifice. 
 
 No wonder, one may think, that it had its 
 conception in the brain of a man to whom 
 flight from his wife was a relief (being sepa- 
 ration from a woman who "rendered twenty 
 years of his life as uncomfortable as a life 
 spent in continual locomotion could be"), 
 and w^as especially cherished and maintained 
 by a race of bachelors and widowers like As- 
 bury. 
 
 Nevertheless, the early itinerants were 
 heroes, and the system itself has points of 
 power and value and capabilities which have 
 wrought wonders and given it a durability 
 and vitality which so far mock the prophe- 
 cies of decay made by Isaac Taylor and oth- 
 ers like him. 
 
 Let us of this later generation, who see 
 and feel its weak point, ponder what reme- 
 dy may be discovered to heal that deadly 
 hurt. Several things occur to me as desir- 
 able in that view: 
 
 1. The erection forthwith of comfortable 
 
112 Recreations of a Presiding ' Elder. 
 
 parsonages in every charge. We already 
 have many. This includes pleasant and suf- 
 ficient furnishing. Thereby, when these are 
 everywhere, the passing from one to another 
 will be like having a warm and cordial wel- 
 come to the Church's own house on earth, 
 which is big enough to hold all its " servants 
 for Jesus' sake." And do not forget the pre- 
 siding elders. Three out of ten districts have 
 parsonages, and all these were built and in 
 large measure paid for by the energy and 
 unceasing toil of the elders. As far as the 
 Church at large is concerned, it would seem 
 as if on their motion aud by their planning 
 the other seven will never be built. But not 
 the less should they be. The Church is at 
 fault, and that grievously, not to build them. 
 
 2. The building and endowment liberally 
 of a Preachers 1 Home, where disabled men 
 and the families of the deceased who need 
 shelter may find it. My heart has ached 
 this year for men who are compelled to su- 
 perannuate, and more for men who ought to 
 retire but feel that they cannot, that it means 
 the almshouse or a kindred fate. We have 
 rich men who could turn this anguish into 
 
The Itinerant's Sacrifice. 113 
 
 resignation. If they would, they could buy 
 some sweet, retired spot, and put it in order 
 for the reception of the worn-out man of God 
 and his wife, or his widow and the most de- 
 pendent of her children. The utter desola- 
 tion of being cast off or forgotten, or of eat- 
 ing the bread of bitter dependence, would be 
 averted. 
 
 When will the thought of doing this arise 
 in some mind capable of executing it? Are 
 the poor to do all the desiring and yearning 
 after charitable works, and the rich forever 
 hold and use the money without one move- 
 ment of soul toward these good things? 
 Then, how fearful the curse of such riches ! 
 how deep the damnation of such misused 
 power for good! "Charge them that are 
 rich in this world that . . . they be rich 
 in good works." Some count their wealth 
 by thousands. For what good works would 
 an enemy of benevolence "stone " them? A 
 few insignificant gifts that bear no propor- 
 tion at all to the income they have had for 
 years is all they can exhibit to a God who 
 cannot be imposed upon. 
 
 Meanwhile the faithful itinerant goes along 
 8 
 
114 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 to his work, year after year adding to a ''rec- 
 ord" that is "on high." The Lord Jesus, 
 when he "comes the second time without 
 sin unto salvation," will give him a "recom- 
 pense of reward." 
 
The Itinerant's Wife. 
 
 115 
 
 No. 18. 
 
 THE ITINERANT'S WIFE. 
 OULD a volume like the " Sketches'' 
 of Dr. Lafferty be prepared, of 
 which the sketches and likenesses 
 should be of the wives of our preachers, and 
 not of the preachers themselves, it would be 
 a more interesting volume, if not a more 
 salable one, than that remarkable produc- 
 tion. It is not their lot or calling to " preach 
 the word ;" as a general rule, preaching wom- 
 en have not been a success or a blessing 
 among us. Of praying women we have had 
 many, and wives of preachers among them, 
 whose life-long piety has left a savor as of 
 "ointment poured forth." But there have 
 been many, neither preaching nor praying in 
 public, who have done the less conspicuous 
 but not less necessary work of " holding up 
 the hands " of the Moseses with whom they 
 had united their lives. These have consti- 
 tuted the bulk of this class. Unostentatious 
 lives, "peaceable and quiet lives in all godli- 
 ness and honesty," have been theirs. Now 
 
116 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 and then, one departs to the better land. 
 Some loving hand draws a brief portrait, and 
 her memory is left with her household and a 
 few intimate friends. There it will be cher- 
 ished, and " oft at evening hour" some eyes 
 will moisten and some hearts ache with a 
 melancholy heaviness, as something recalls 
 the image of the vanished face, the touch of 
 the vanished hand. What these women have 
 been to their husbands none will ever know 
 but those who have "loved and lost." With 
 words of cheer, born of the faith and pa- 
 tience " that inherit the promises," they have 
 strengthened the fainting hearts of the itin- 
 erants who have been ready, like Elijah, to 
 die because they were not better than their 
 fathers, and saw no signs of redemption of 
 the Lord's heritage. With wonderful inge- 
 nuity, they have supplied the lack of service 
 of an unappreciative Church, toiling night 
 and day to make a small allowance support 
 a large family; and, meantime, not forgetful 
 of the poor, and ready for every good word 
 and work. With a gracious affability, wor- 
 thy of a queen, they welcome all sorts of 
 visitors, and try to make all alike feel at ease 
 
The Itinerant's Wife. 
 
 117 
 
 and enjoy themselves under the friendly 
 shelter of the parsonage roof. Despite a load 
 of family cares, these ladies are oft from ne- 
 cessity the teachers of their own little ones, 
 and add the labor of giving instruction to 
 the drudgery of household work. Like the 
 mother of John Wesley, it is they who guide 
 the infant finger to spell out " In the begin- 
 ning God created the heaven and the earth," 
 making the Bible their text-book of letters 
 and religion from the very first. Ah! who 
 can tell the price of such women — these pa- 
 tient, believing, long-sufiering, pious "yoke- 
 fellows " of our itinerant oxen? Is it an evil 
 or a good spirit who reminds me that all are 
 not of this description ? 
 
 I would fain throw a w 7 ide mantle of char- 
 ity over the faults of husband and wife alike. 
 But perhaps a slight delineation, by w T ay of 
 allusion, may be as a looking-glass to show 
 errors that may yet be corrected. 
 
 Such a wife as I have depicted is not an 
 extravagant woman, to run her husband into 
 wasteful expenditures which embarrass him 
 greatly and ultimately endanger his very sal- 
 vation ; nor a lover of gossip, having a tongue 
 
118 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 (if not a finger) in all neighborhood scandal 
 and petty quarrels; nor a cherisher of dubi- 
 ous acquaintances and fellowships involving 
 her husband's good name if not her own; 
 nor a " swift witness" against all whom she 
 classes, justly or unjustly, as unfriendly to 
 her husband or children, ready to denounce 
 in language not measured and to condemn 
 with judgment not righteous; nor a woman 
 of coarse tastes and rough manners, assum- 
 ing to claim in her husband's name what she 
 thinks he is too mealy-mouthed to demand 
 for her or himself, and in that style bullying 
 stewards and other church officers; nor a 
 proud, haughty, high-minded (in the offen- 
 sive sense of Romans xii. 16) woman, who is 
 always afraid that she may associate with 
 some persons or families not her equals in 
 refinement, education, or intelligence, and 
 who repels the diffident by her loftiness, and 
 the warm-hearted by her frigid demeanor. 
 Better than any of these that an itiner- 
 ant's wife should be an insignificant cipher, 
 counting zero in life's great calculations, a 
 sweet-faced simpleton, gentle as a pet dog, 
 and useless as a canary that will not sing. 
 
The Itinerant's Wife. 
 
 119 
 
 She will " break no books if she cateh no 
 fish." 
 
 I am proud to believe, from a wide ac- 
 quaintance with them, that a nobler body of 
 women than the wives of our Virginia itin- 
 erants would be hard to find. Not a few of 
 them are rare combinations of the best qual- 
 ities of mind and heart; some of them would 
 adorn any sphere of life. Many are " pat- 
 terns of good works;" many are, by their 
 grace of manner, their charm of character, 
 their tact and good taste, such aids to their 
 husbands as make those better halves count 
 for double, and more than double, what they 
 would be alone. 
 
 I speak not of beauty of face or figure, of 
 accomplishments, of distinguished connec- 
 tions. All these may be tributary to the holy 
 uses of Christ's Church and minsters. Love- 
 liness of person joined to loveliness of char- 
 acter, true refinement and the elegance in- 
 separable from genuine cultivation, sanctified 
 by true piety, are powerful instrumentalities 
 for doing good. God bless our preachers 
 and their families! God comfort the be- 
 reaved who in loneliness travel the road of 
 
120 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 toil and self-denial once made bright by the 
 presence of an "angel of the household!" 
 The Lord strengthen the hearts of our true 
 and faithful ones, who have "left all" for 
 Jesus' sake and their husbands! 
 
The Old North State. 
 
 121 
 
 No. 19. 
 
 THE OLD NORTH STATE. 
 N unexpected turn of events re- 
 cently carried me out of my dis- 
 trict and State, and left me for 
 some days, including a Sunday, in North 
 Carolina. I was once a citizen of that noble 
 old State; many sweet and precious memo- 
 ries cling around those years: the vexations 
 and misunderstandings of life, thank God, 
 are measurably forgotten, and only a little 
 sediment of disturbance marks their position 
 on the chart of by-gone years. The good 
 and the pleasant are more durable. They 
 grapple to my heart-strings yet. Over the 
 curve of the under-world into which have 
 gone those distant years, when I was so much 
 younger and fresher, when my children were 
 little ones, and coming life seemed to offer 
 many opportunities of happiness and useful- 
 ness, come up to me faint but soft murmur- 
 ings of pleasant recollections. The friends 
 of those days people once more the halls of 
 memory (many of them, alas! are passed to 
 
122 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 another life); I wander as of yore in the fields 
 and woods; the ordinary routine is bright 
 and bus}^, and public and extraordinary days 
 are full of excitement. But it is " the clang 
 of the wooden shoon," in Molloy's song. 
 
 And here I am, in another part of the 
 State, far off from those pleasant walks of 
 " lang syne." And it does not look like the 
 land of the holly and myrtle, the arbutus, 
 the yellow jasmine, the saracenia, and pond- 
 lily. The soil is red, the mud deep, and the 
 hills swell and streams roll along more like 
 my native Piedmont, Virginia. The air is 
 softer, however, by far than that which is 
 blowing from snow-touched mountains and 
 along wind-shaken heights of that lovely 
 region. The gardens will be some weeks 
 ahead, and out-door life be much more prac- 
 ticable in the spring. 
 
 An ancient town, with its ample lots, its 
 wide streets, and many elms, stretches around 
 me. Gen. Jackson (Andrew, not Stonewall) 
 once had a law-office here. I have seen the 
 old building myself; but it was removed in 
 1876 to the Philadelphia "- Centennial." Not 
 a great way off, that earlier "declaration of 
 
The Old North State. 123 
 
 independence'' than Thomas Jefferson's was 
 made; the descendants of a German and 
 Scotch-Irish immigration many years ago 
 are around, testifying by name and appear- 
 ance and manners to their original deriva- 
 tion ; it is not North-eastern, but South-west- 
 ern Carolina. Get upon this iron track that 
 stretches away westward, and you will, with- 
 in one hundred miles, be climbing the grades 
 of that wonderful engineering which has 
 pierced and crossed the Bine Ridge; you will 
 be gazing upon the highest peaks this side 
 of the Rocky Mountains, and viewing land- 
 scapes unsurpassed for beauty and grandeur. 
 
 Here are two mementos of heights yet 
 beyond those, on the border of Tennessee, 
 which have been given me: a beautiful cane of 
 rhododendron (mountain laurel) and a quartz 
 pebble, flattened and round and smooth, 
 three inches wide, which was cut out of a 
 deer's stomach, killed near a watering-place. 
 Doubtless the animal swallowed it imbedded 
 in a mass of the soft green moss they eat in 
 hard weather. lie "bit off more than he 
 could chew," and so bolted his meal, and 
 seemed to suffer no more from his indigesti- 
 
124 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 ble food than the English sailor who, it is re- 
 ported, " swallowed sixteen jack-knives." 
 
 But I am wandering — not in a land of fa- 
 ble; except, it may be, as to those "jack- 
 knives ; " for them I am not responsible ; that 
 case is in the medical reports. 
 
 I have not been long domiciled when I am 
 visited by that excellent Christian gentleman 
 Dr. Black, presiding elder of the district, 
 and Brother Wheeler, preacher in charge, 
 and booked for a sermon Sunday morning. 
 At night I preach for my friend Dr. Rumple, 
 of the Presb}^terian church. The Methodists 
 have enlarged and improved their church. 
 They have a pipe organ, well played, and a 
 good quartet choir, who sing well and lead 
 the people in plain tunes for the regular 
 hymns. But the congregation did not sing 
 very much. I prefer good singing by a choir, 
 however small, to bad singing by a congre- 
 gation ; the larger the worse, if the singing 
 be bad. But we need not have either ex- 
 treme. Our people are to blame when they 
 do not study and try to sing well, and seek 
 to be instructed and practice so as to swell 
 the volume of singing in the church without 
 
The Old North State. 
 
 125 
 
 missing the time or uttering discord. Ko 
 choir shall "do my singing," though I shall 
 he very thankful to have the leading and 
 guidance which a good one furnishes; and 
 will be careful to follow them and not tort- 
 ure their souls by incorrect notes or untime- 
 ly movements. 
 
 The Baptists have at length erected a 
 church here; they are still feeble in numbers 
 and financial ability. But they and the 
 Methodists — the denominations which reach 
 the masses — grow and spread, while the 
 Episcopalians remain about the same, or die 
 out in the rural districts, and the Presbyteri- 
 ans, once overwhelmingly predominant in 
 this country, staud still, and though gener- 
 ally strong make no advance. 
 
 The railroads have changed the centers of 
 population in this region somewhat. Where 
 several meet population increases. Thus 
 Greensboro has grown to six thousand per- 
 haps, and Charlotte, which was smaller than 
 Salisbury thirty-five years ago, has ten thou- 
 sand, and is the livest town in the State. The 
 mountain towns are growing — Morganton, 
 Asheville, etc. A vast development has be- 
 
126 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 gun, and in due time the mineral riches of the 
 great Blue Ridge and Alleghany section will 
 be fully opened, and its vast capabilities as a 
 grazing, agricultural, and manufacturing re- 
 gion made known. It is no exaggeration to 
 say that Piedmont and South-west Virginia, 
 West Virginia, and Western North Carolina 
 have enough in them to sustain and employ a 
 population equal to that of Great Britain. A 
 long time hence, when this scribe and his con- 
 temporaries are in their graves and forgot- 
 ten, as great a transformation will have come 
 over these sections as would be palpable to 
 a hero of King's Mountain or Cowpens could 
 he come up out of his grave and see and un- 
 derstand things of our day. 
 
 Gold mining has been carried on in South- 
 western Carolina for many years ; it has usu- 
 ally proved a losing business to the last hold- 
 ers. A very rich discovery has been lately 
 made, it is said, near Salisbury ; the owner is 
 not working, but trying to sell, but capital- 
 ists are shy. 
 
Gloomy Weather. 127 
 
 No. 20. 
 
 GLOOMY WEATHER. 
 T rains and it rains. Somewhere 
 among the English-speaking peo- 
 ple the expression obtains, " It 
 rains cats and dogs." The precise origin of 
 this is unknown to me; doubtless the mean- 
 ing is a very unusual shower — as unusual as 
 if it were " pitchforks," or the members of 
 the animal family last named. But, how- 
 ever droll this phraseology, I am sure of this, 
 that if it had ever rained " cats and dogs," 
 they would have " descended " in the fallings 
 of this "spell." In my district we have had 
 varieties of thin snow, sleet, and thunder and 
 lightning, but no " Tom" or "Bowser" has 
 " come down," although a good many of 
 both have probably " gone up," succumbing 
 to the ills which cold and wet bring upon the 
 feline and canine race. 
 
 Many have been the interruptions of di- 
 vine service ; few have been the full and 
 crowded houses. Even in town there has 
 been decline. Many appointments have fall- 
 
128 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 en through, and the list of sermons preached 
 has been considerably shorter than it was 
 last year. More hours, however, for reading 
 and thinking. Nature has felt the inclem- 
 ent weather in all the departments of growth 
 and floral beauty. The gentle approaches of 
 spring have been imperceptible. The im- 
 prudent bud or blossom that has ventured 
 out to "breathe forth incense like a prayer" 
 has had an untimely nipping; the green 
 edgings and little patches under the fences 
 and hedge-rows have been narrow and some- 
 times singed in appearance; the trees and 
 fields have worn a wintry look, and preached 
 sermons on death rather than resurrection. 
 The unkept and unsheltered forest nurseries 
 have furnished scarcely a blossom; an early 
 and diminutive pansy, a dandelion here and 
 there on warm slopes, has rewarded a patient 
 search. Hyacinths and crocuses have bloomed 
 in open yards, and jonquils and the like, but 
 by much help and protection and somewhat 
 scantily. I have been longing to get within 
 reach of my favorite wild flowers — to tickle 
 thehepatica leaves, and turn over the stems 
 of trailing arbutus, and see if the adder's 
 
Gloomy Weather. 
 
 129 
 
 tongue has shot up out of the ground and 
 pierced the dead leaves through with the dart 
 of his pointed leaf. But, perhaps, if allowed, 
 I would have been searching, in this late 
 season, in vain for bloom. Vegetation has 
 been wearing Charles Y.'s early motto, u Non- 
 dum." 
 
 These gloomy days — with the light of the 
 sun darkened, and every thing dripping about 
 us, confining us to our houses a great deal, 
 and so narrowing the area of our activities 
 and enjoyments — are they not symbolical of 
 certain seasons of our religious life? Says 
 the poet Longfellow: 
 
 Into each life some rain must fall ; 
 Some days must be dark and dreary. 
 
 And if this be true as to the mixture of good 
 and evil, of sorrow and joy, in common life, 
 it is doubtless ordinarilv true as to the lisrht 
 and shade of spiritual life. Some souls may 
 attain a state of unbroken delight and satis- 
 faction, but for the great majority there are 
 decided fluctuations. I believe very decided- 
 ly that all may attain a serene and settled 
 faith and love, ready for every trial and vic- 
 torious over sin and the world, but with these 
 9 
 
130 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 some days will be balmy as May and bright 
 as June, and others cold and dark as Decem- 
 ber. Outward circumstances will change, 
 and require adjustments of faith and hope 
 and love and patience to meet them; and be- 
 fore these become habitual and settled the 
 new aspect of affairs will be chilly and 
 gloomy. "The clouds" will "return after 
 the rain," a momentary glimpse of fairer sky 
 be succeeded by thicker screens of vapor and 
 heavier down-pourings. 
 
 The rainy season has its meteorological 
 justification; it is necessary and in the end 
 beneficial to climate and agriculture. And 
 so of our spiritual dark clays. They have 
 their uses. Being such as we are, we need 
 them. As nobody sighs for a country on 
 earth where it never rains, but where sun- 
 shine is a perpetual burning glare, so no- 
 body wants this life to be unalloyed — unless, 
 indeed, the unbeliever in another life. The 
 Christian is simply led by his saddened ex- 
 periences to long and pray: 
 
 "Take me to Thee up on high, 
 Where winter and clouds are no more." 
 
 " There everlasting spring abides." It is the 
 
Gloomy Weather. 131 
 
 only country that could stand that state of 
 things. When we are gone to " the land of 
 the leal," where sin is banished and God 
 reigns in a kingdom that cannot be moved, 
 we shall be able to do without the discipline 
 of chastening and clouds and dark days. 
 Till then, let it rain on according to His will 
 who guides the clouds in the natural and re- 
 ligious atmosphere. 
 
 . . . Moist and heat and dry 
 
 Shall foster and mature the grain 
 For garners in the sky. 
 
132 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 21. 
 SYSTEMATIC MEN. 
 
 HE winter is past and gone; the 
 time of flowers and song-birds is 
 come. The gloomy weather has 
 ceased; some weeks of comparative dryness 
 and warmth have rejoiced the soul of the 
 husbandmen and made the roads quite prac- 
 ticable, which had before been well-nigh im- 
 passable. 
 
 The energetic itinerants, baffled hitherto, 
 but not defeated or discouraged, will begin 
 afresh, and with good-will, and hopefulness, 
 their partially suspended and oft interrupt- 
 ed work. Every church will put forth 
 buds of promise, and all over the district 
 there will be smiling faces and hopeful 
 hearts. 
 
 I risk nothing in prophesying that a cer- 
 tain class of men among the preachers and 
 church officers will at once take the start and 
 keep it. These are the systematic men; the 
 men who do not work at hap-hazard, but 
 plan what they haw to do, and habitually 
 
Systematic Men. 
 
 133 
 
 keep an orderly account of all their transac- 
 tions and the results of them. 
 
 Generally, the man of system manifests 
 his propensity in every direction. He has 
 lists and memorandum-book, and knows 
 where every thing is and what everybody un- 
 der his control is doing. I have often been 
 half amused, half provoked, at the jumble 
 which unsystematic men make of the mate- 
 rials of their labor. They lose an immense 
 amount of time looking for things. Nothing 
 is ever exactly at hand ; it has to be searched 
 for just when required, and is hardly ever 
 promptly found. Not so with the systematic 
 man. He can put his finger on whatever he 
 needs, at a moment's notice; has considered 
 the matter in advance, planned how to man- 
 age it when the time should come, and is not 
 bewildered or flurried by the demand. lie 
 does not always succeed to the full degree of 
 his purposes and hopes; but he has some re- 
 source counted upon and laid by, and disap- 
 pointment is never with him utterly blight- 
 ing, nor failure overwhelming and complete. 
 I have met with men that ran system to 
 seed, and, like the tithers of "mint, anise, 
 
134 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 cummin, and rue in our Lord's day, made 
 more of their tables of "small things " and 
 their picayune lists and memoranda than of 
 important events and momentous occasions. 
 One of these fellows, with his inch-rule and 
 petty measurements of flies' feet and moths' 
 eyes, is a pest. But he is not so bad as a 
 man that never has any thing in place, knows 
 nothing with exactness, has no fixed arrange- 
 ments, and catches up whatever comes near- 
 est to him at the time of action. 
 
 Systematic men are a comfort to the pre- 
 siding elder at Quarterly and District Con- 
 ferences. They are in place, and the entries 
 in reply to " Minute Questions" and the like, 
 which depend on them, are made exhaustive- 
 ly and quickly. The bearing of their regu- 
 lar habits upon study and pastoral visiting 
 must be evident to any reflecting mind. By 
 means of these, a man of ordinary ability 
 may far surpass in usefulness, and even in 
 acceptableness, a brilliant but irregular work- 
 man. The simple element of reliableness 
 makes all the difference. It is also another 
 illustration of the hare and tortoise race. 
 When system is combined with great ener- 
 
Systematic Men. 135 
 
 gy and uncommon gifts, the amount of work 
 that can be put forth by a human being is 
 utterly amazing. The last work, a posthu- 
 mous one, of the late J. R. Green, author of 
 the " History of the People of England," ap- 
 pears, from its preface, to have been wrought 
 out by the dying struggles of a man whose 
 systematic habits of study and work, by his 
 wife's noble assistance, prevailed to produce 
 one more monument of his historical genius, 
 despite the prostration, pain, and nervous- 
 ness of a fatal and rapidly progressing dis- 
 ease. Enthusiasm was a tremendous force 
 in his case, but it is evident that it would 
 have amounted to little but for long-formed 
 habits of systematic collecting, noting, and 
 digesting of the materials he would have to 
 employ. Little can be done to cure elderly 
 men of a want of system ; it is like 44 putting 
 new wine into old wine-skins; " they would 
 not bear it. But the young man, especially 
 the young preacher, the novice in our min- 
 istry, may hear a word of exhortation on the 
 subject with profit. Perhaps he already has 
 begun in the right way. Let nothing turn 
 you out of it. Beware of contracting slov- 
 
136 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 enly and irregular habits as you grow older. 
 Keep your books and papers in an orderly 
 and careful manner. If you cannot " do ev- 
 ery thing by rule," have a clear and well-di- 
 gested system of doing, by which you will 
 know very well, at the beginning of every 
 day, what you are going to attempt, and how 
 it is to be done. Do not despise small mat- 
 ters; keep an eye on details, and be ready to 
 make use of them when necessary. Exact- 
 ness and precision, when not unduly pro- 
 moted to the place of even better things, are 
 excellent, and often gain a victory where 
 vagueness and uncertainty would amount to 
 nothing. Some men have built a considera- 
 ble reputation upon a high degree of these ; 
 and many a preacher has lost position and 
 become a "wet log" because he was of no 
 value except when discoursing of abstract 
 questions and principles of the most general 
 kind in the pulpit. He could not descend to 
 statistics, collections, common-sense details; 
 and was hedged out in all directions by the 
 cry, " We want a practical and systematic 
 preacher!" 
 
Machinery in the Church. 
 
 187 
 
 No. 22. 
 
 MACHINERY IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 HE age is mechanical. Inventions 
 are past numbering, and in noth- 
 ing has the active Anglo-American 
 mind been more restlessly and successfully 
 employed than in the devising of means by 
 which labor may be saved and the work of 
 many men done by a few, and better done 
 than ever. To some extent the same spirit 
 has entered into ecclesiastical affairs, and 
 there, too, u sought out many inventions." 
 The homely machinery of our fathers has 
 given place to " forty-horse power " agencies 
 and boards. The horseback corps of Bish- 
 ops, presiding elders, and circuit-riders, with 
 an annually-appearing " book steward," and, 
 after some time, the " college agent," here 
 and there, has been succeeded by a " college " 
 of Bishops, Book Agents, and Missionary 
 Secretaries, and officers, and " boards," not 
 innumerable by any means, but increasingly 
 numerous. 
 
 Is it not possible that the matter is over- 
 
138 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 done? Every thing at " head -quarters " is 
 done by a " board," or its equivalent — which 
 is all very well; but it seems to me that 
 when in the Annual Conference, besides our 
 finance board, our standing committees have 
 been organized into "boards," and Sunday- 
 schools and education, as well as missions 
 and Church extension, must be put into 
 "boards," the thing is getting rather stiff. 
 The review of such subjects at the Annual 
 Conference is necessarily brief and springing 
 out of the occasion, and the attempt to im- 
 part a durability to these organizations by 
 appointing them, so as to hold, over proved, in 
 our Conference, a complete failure the very 
 first year. But by law we have the name of 
 "board" riveted upon what is in every re- 
 spect a committee, and which was as service- 
 able by that form and name. 
 
 What may grow into a great mischief has 
 been doubtless little considered in this mat- 
 ter. I refer to the tendency in all such organ- 
 izations to take on more or less of the " close 
 corporation" spirit. It is an easy growth in 
 them to assume entire and exclusive custody of 
 the subjects embracer] In their charge, and 
 
Machinery in the Church. 139 
 
 to work toward turning the Annual Con- 
 ferences into mere instruments for registering 
 their acts. This is increased by the manage- 
 ment of our time in our annual session. 
 When we have^a " statistical Bishop," who 
 requests preachers to read their reports made 
 to the Joint Board of Finance and the Con- 
 ference Secretary, and duly published in ex- 
 tenso in the Minutes (the readers of which 
 are the only people who pay the slightest 
 attention to them elsewhere), the time is so 
 taken up with that dreary performance, and 
 the vain attempts to keep order during an ex- 
 ercise in which nobody but the Bishop can 
 affect to be interested, that, with the una- 
 voidable routine business, the days slip away, 
 and u the heel'' of the session appears ere 
 anybody outside of the numerous " boards " 
 has considered or discussed any points not 
 comparatively trivial. Then, when but a day 
 or two remain to weigh and digest the in- 
 formation and suggested action upon the 
 subjects of Finance, Sunday-schools, Mis- 
 sions, Publishing, and Education, communi- 
 cated in the reports from boards and commit- 
 tees, things are driven ahead under whip and 
 
140 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 spur, with the aid of a large body of dispir- 
 ited preachers, worn out by lengths of noth- 
 ings which have deployed before them in 
 almost interminable succession day by day; 
 and, as happened at one of our Conferences, 
 a long report on one of the # most important 
 subjects, containing recommendation of very 
 questionable action, is put upon its passage, 
 without an explanation or a single effort to 
 look at the difficulties involved. And when 
 the President of the Conference is not an un- 
 conscious time- waster, the body itself allows 
 the most important boards and committees 
 to delay to the last moment. It would be 
 well for every committee and board to re- 
 port, unless on some small matter of detail, 
 on Monday, and some on Saturday, that there 
 may be full consideration in Conference. The 
 contrary practice results in increasing rest- 
 lessness on the part of boards at having their 
 views objected to, and to criticisms after Con- 
 ference, which generally lead to irritating 
 controversies and prolonged misunderstand- 
 ings. In a session of seven or eight days, at 
 least three or four should be devoted to calm 
 and thorough ventilation of these reports. 
 
Machinery in the Church. 141 
 
 But some sa} r , " Of what value is discus- 
 sion? We do not need talk. The board con- 
 siders the subject, and its action and report 
 need no prolonged talk about the subject." 
 Discussion need not be mere talk. In a de- 
 liberative body it should be short and direct. 
 It is comparison of many opinions that settles 
 the mind of such a body. And how oft it 
 occurs that a paper, which seemed faultless 
 and exact and well-conceived, is found to be 
 very defective when some sharp-sighted mem- 
 ber goes to searching it. Under his dissect- 
 ing-knife, what looked sound enough shows 
 some ugly spots. And again, a plausible ob- 
 jection is overthrown by discussion, and the 
 approval of the paper, shaken at first, be- 
 comes clear and undoubted. Open and free 
 discussion is fatal to the spirit of dictation — 
 which insensibly forms in certain minds and 
 around certain bodies — and widens the field 
 of view for every member of the Conference, 
 except in the case of one who is so self-con- 
 ceited as to suppose that nothing can be add- 
 ed to his knowledge or his wisdom. 
 
 The increase of machinery, more especially 
 apparent at our Annual Conferences, has 
 
142 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 been progressively impairing the devoulness 
 of those assemblies. It was no idle word 
 when our fathers proposed to " do everything 
 as in the immediate presence of God." And 
 the religious services were unusually fervent 
 and edifying. At some of the earlier Con- 
 ferences, attended by even so young a mem- 
 ber as myself, there was a morning prayer- 
 meeting of a half-hour or so on first meet- 
 ing. Now there are anniversaries and meet- 
 ings "in the interest of" this or that, until 
 preaching, save on Sunday, " hides its dimin- 
 ished head " at all the chief churches. And 
 the concourse of strangers, representing this 
 " board" and that, men necessarily full of 
 their particular business, gives a hue of spe- 
 cialties to our general proceedings, by which 
 we approach nearer and nearer to the idea 
 of a Baptist Association, and depart more 
 and more from that of a Methodist Confer- 
 ence of traveling preachers. 
 
 But I have gossiped long enough on this 
 head. This lovely morning, following three 
 or four gloomy days, has made me garrulous 
 like the birds, who are telling each other in 
 tree and shrubbery what they think of mat- 
 
Machinery in the Church, 143 
 
 ters and things. Specially is that fussy little 
 rascal, the English sparrow, uttering his 
 sharp chirp. He is a new "hoard" in the 
 department of ornithology that is an inva- 
 sion of old customs and a multiplier of mis- 
 chief. Why, will you believe it, gentle read- 
 er, I saw the other day, in the Capitol Square 
 at Richmond, that he had built a nest or two 
 in Thomas Jefferson's vest-pocket, and had 
 been trying to get inside of the roll of the 
 Declaration of Independence? I would like 
 his report to be discussed by a numerous 
 conference of sparrow-hawks and butcher- 
 birds. 
 
144 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 23. 
 MUSIC IN OLDEN DAYS. 
 ALKINGr the other clay through 
 the old "Methodist Cemetery,'' as 
 it was called when I was a boy, 
 which lies near the head of Fifth street, in 
 Lynchburg, Va., I saw a marble slab erected 
 to the memory of "Blind Billy," the negro 
 fife-player, whom all older Lynchburgers 
 recollect. What a train of thought started on 
 sight of that simple inscription ! The blind 
 fifer, as I often saw him, rose to my inward 
 sight marching on the street, orat the "gen- 
 eral musters" of the country along the dusty 
 country roads, between two drummers, one 
 on each side, who, while sustaining with tre- 
 mendous clatter the noisy accompaniment to 
 Billy's ear-piercing instrument, served the 
 purpose of guides to him also. Lost to all 
 save the music which rushed in waves of 
 rapture through his brain, his sightless eyes 
 upturned and the face expressive of complete 
 transport, he played for hours and marched 
 and countermarched, or, when he halted, 
 
Music in Olden Days. 145 
 
 beat time with his foot while the unsophisti- 
 cated natives heard the " Soldier's Joy," 
 " Gilderoy," or " White Cockade," " Barba- 
 ra Allen/' or " The Girl I Left Behind Me," 
 played with a spirit and expression never ex- 
 celled. The sound of that fife seemed to get 
 into the air and go all over the ground. It 
 made itself part of those scenes — as unfor- 
 getable as the uniforms and horses of the 
 militia regimental officers or the cake-carts 
 and candy-stands. The last strains attended 
 the setting sun, or perhaps, if Billy and his 
 drum comrades remained over night, the 
 plaintive melodies I shall presently allude to 
 stole softly (though high and piercing) across 
 "the dewy steeps of air" from the precincts 
 of the village inn to the chambers of senti- 
 mental and solitary listeners. These tunes 
 were often est heard, however, to perfection 
 at night in Lynchburg itself. Somewhere on 
 the street, at some shop where he was re- 
 garded as an acquisition, or feed to come 
 regularly, he was standing at some aperture, 
 and for rove of music more than any other 
 motive discoursing on his beloved fife 
 strains "in sweetness to outlast the morn." 
 10 
 
146 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 I remember particularly two — " Kathleen 
 O'More" and "Wandering Willie." As 
 rendered by Billy, these melodies were en- 
 dowed with a matchless pathos. If you 
 knew the poetry, your heart ached over 
 " poor little Kathleen " and her heart-broken 
 lover, and the red-breast was more sacred in 
 your eyes, as in his, because it loved the 
 church-yard and there "hopped lightly o'er 
 Kathleen," the lovely little creature conse- 
 crated by an early death. I have never been 
 able to find in print the melody of "Wan- 
 dering Willie " he played. Where he got it 
 of course I have no idea; he heard it first, 
 probably, from some wandering musician, it 
 may be, with bagpipe or fiddle. But it is 
 lovelier and tenderer far and truer to the 
 words than the airs I have seen in " Scotch 
 songs" of various collections. I suspect it 
 is older, and like the ballads of the" border" 
 traveled to this side of the Atlantic by tra- 
 dition. Had that wandering lover, afloat on 
 the raging billows, heard Billy's melody and 
 Burns' s words with it, treason and faithless- 
 ness, if dawning there, would have fled from 
 his heart, fiends exorcised by the power of 
 
Musk in Olden Days. 147 
 
 music; and he would have sailed back to " his 
 Dannie" over miles of main and despite all 
 the storms of an angry ocean. Across the 
 gap of nearly forty years that song comes 
 to my ear. It is a bright, soft night. The 
 moon is full, and sheds its mild luster over 
 pavements and piles of brick and stone. I 
 am in bed, but not sleepy, though a more or 
 less tired boy. For " mine ear " is " attent- 
 ive " to Billy's fife. As thrilling as the notes 
 of that other wonderful natural musician., 
 the wood-thrush, the note trembles on the 
 air. It is loud and distinct, yet not harsh or 
 obtrusive. The tempo is instinctively well 
 taken, the musician's soul is in it, and no 
 money could buy such fidelity to the idea of 
 the composer as Billy's love will furnish. As 
 I lie awake and listening, imagination takes 
 me captive. Common life drops out of sight. 
 I feel every note, and wish he would play till 
 day-break. As the pathos renews itself with 
 the oft-repeated strain, growing tenderer and 
 tenderer, mounting toward heaven in great- 
 er purity and power, I feel the tears starting 
 to my eyes. Just then he stops, and like his 
 brother musician of the wood — is gone. Un- 
 
148 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 like the bird, he does not warble that tink- 
 ling, pathetic trill from some greater distance. 
 His bed-time has come, or the shop is shut 
 up, and Billy will soon be under the spell of 
 death's brother — prophetic of that other 
 stronger spell which holds him now in clay 
 and silence. And, as it is now, I listen in 
 vain, and retain only the memory of that 
 matchless fife. 
 
Protracted Meetings. 
 
 149 
 
 No. 24. 
 PROTRACTED MEETINGS. 
 
 HE season for these meetings draws 
 nigh. The average Methodists 
 think their Church is about mined 
 
 without a protracted meeting annually* 
 They may have had excellent preaching, 
 without exception, and a great deal of it 
 statedly; the Sunday-school may be flour- 
 ishing, and the general state of piety, judg- 
 ing by the lives and works of the people, en- 
 couraging; but still the successor of the old 
 " two-days' meeting" must have his chance, 
 and a week or more with " all-day service " 
 must be spent in preaching to the unconvert- 
 ed. Much of this amounts to but little; 
 there is " 'twixt promise and performance 
 rare proportion!" yet it is going to be done, 
 and our object is not to prevent it, but to 
 make some suggestions which may possibly 
 improve the results. 
 
 The real success of a meeting depends 
 much on the preaching; largely, doubtless, 
 upon the prayers and fervent spirit of the 
 
150 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 people, but in these the preaching is a large 
 and influential factor. In what respects, 
 then, would we seek to improve the preach- 
 ing? 
 
 1. Has it not been hortatory to too large 
 an extent? It is often said that people un- 
 derstand well enough; what they need is to 
 be persuaded to act. "But this is less true 
 than we suppose. Many will not act because 
 their ideas are confused. There is great need 
 of instruction. The great doctrines of re- 
 ligion need to be expounded. The stock ar- 
 guments against delay, the scriptural proof 
 of God's readiness to save now, the sermons 
 on quenching the Holy Spirit and sinning 
 away grace, are somewhat stale and trite. 
 But, handled with any vigor, the great fun- 
 damental doctrines of Justification, Regen- 
 eration, Repentance, Witness of the Spirit, 
 Holiness, etc., can never become stale. Let 
 us stir up the gift of God in us, and while 
 we persuade and exhort men do it with the 
 words of sound doctrine. Let the great num- 
 bers v 7 ho attend go away wiser and more 
 thoughtful. Do not be afraid that you will 
 not create a sensation and have a great move. 
 
Protracted Meetings, 
 
 151 
 
 Some of the grandest revivals of all times 
 were generated in connection with powerful, 
 thoughtful, reasoning preaching. 
 
 2. Has it not been too general? The par- 
 tridge-hunter soon learns that he does little 
 execution by firing loosely "into the covey." 
 He must single out the bird and take aim 
 every time. Far or near, he will kill then. 
 So indefinite talk, which spends itself upon 
 general propositions vaguely applied, will not 
 find a real mark. The idea is to make some 
 hearer cry out, u My conscience felt and owned 
 the guilt!" By close and searching applica- 
 tion a general doctrine can be brought home. 
 We must beware of having our congregation 
 made up of Betty Raskellys (as Betty was at 
 first) who will think we are speaking of 
 " things that happened a long time ago, about 
 people who lived a long time since, in a coun- 
 try a long way off." Make them realize that 
 you mean them — that you believe they are 
 sinners and need to repent at once. Draw 
 pictures from real life. Do not lampoon, but 
 be pointed, direct, unflattering. Preach in 
 reproof of sins that are committed and pop- 
 ular in your community. Stir up the whis- 
 
152 Recreations of a Presiding Eider. 
 
 ky-seller, the Sabbath-breaker, the drunkard, 
 the cheat, the fornicator, the lazy man. Be 
 prudent, but " cry aloud and spare not." 
 
 3. Have we not omitted to a hurtful ex- 
 tent the custom of our fathers, of bringing in 
 allusions to experience? How interesting to 
 all classes of people, to the unconverted often, 
 are lively love-feasts or experience-meetings! 
 It is because they are concrete religion; they 
 are specimens of the individual life — the act- 
 ual warfare . between the flesh and the Spirit. 
 It was a good armory from which to draw 
 weapons in the olden time — the experience 
 of the preachers themselves. Let us return 
 somewmat to that method. Out of your own 
 life and that of other men of God illustrate 
 the abstract truths of vital religion. Let the 
 people feel that it is a matter of common 
 daily life about which we preach — something 
 not far off as the Middle Ages and intangi- 
 ble as superstitious legends, but matter of 
 actual trial and proof with us of to-day. 
 Sermons will thus be fresher, simpler, and 
 more effective. Moody and the other evan- 
 gelists of Our day employ this method. They 
 tell what happened at such a place and time, 
 
Protracted Meetings. 
 
 153 
 
 give names and dates and actual conversa- 
 tions. Methodi-st literature and biography 
 are full of materials for this, purpose; and de- 
 spise not your own experience. An extract 
 from it may be the smooth pebble from the 
 ■brook that shall kill a Goliath. 
 
 A word about singing. To our ears the 
 singing in our meetings often sounds tame. 
 One rarely hears now — thanks to God for it ! — 
 the doggerel choruses that in so many places 
 disgraced our singing and brought our intel- 
 ligence into question. Moody and Sankey 
 have done a great service in killing off these. 
 May our ears never again be afflicted with 
 "Hail, hail, hail!* 7 or "Brethren, will you 
 meet me?" or "I have a father (mother, 
 brother, and innumerable relations) in the 
 promised land ! " nor have the strong, nervous 
 lines of such a hymn as "Jesus, my all, to 
 heaven is gone," dislocated by intervening 
 and uncongenial scraps, such as " I am bound 
 for the land of Canaan !" But there is a tend- 
 ency to drag, as if the pieces were over- 
 familiar, or were sung without feeling or 
 thought. Let us begin to revive the great 
 Methodist revival hymns ana the tunes with 
 
154 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 them. Study anew that part of our hymn- 
 book. The Methodists have always been a 
 great singing people. Let us stand by our 
 ancient colors in this respect, singing "with 
 the spirit and with the understanding also." 
 
The Death of the Old. 
 
 165 
 
 No. 25. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE OLD. 
 ORE than six months of the Con- 
 ference year have passed, and so 
 far only one of our preachers has 
 fallen — that noble veteran, George W. Nol- 
 le}^ first on our list in length of service, and 
 just on the verge of four-score. For a num- 
 ber of years past our annual losses have been 
 of men past sixty. The year that slew Dun- 
 can and Hodges has had no fellow since that 
 sad date. The blade of the Great Reaper 
 lately grazed another of our older and most 
 valued men, and made us hold our breath 
 for days together till we heard the steps of 
 the destroyer die away in the distance. And 
 we have a list of aged men lingering among 
 us yet, dear and honored, bound to us by the 
 associations and labors of many years. The 
 heats of summer, the malarial vapors of 
 autumn, the chilling winds of incipient win- 
 ter, are yet to be passed by them ere our next 
 assemblage in Virginia's " Hill City." Will 
 another of these faithful men of God, full of 
 
156 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 years and labors, be taken from us ? or will the 
 old Ashland hero sleep alone as the harvest 
 of death among us this year? 
 
 Such questions passing through my mind 
 have recalled a passage, perhaps forgotten by 
 its author in the distinguished and impor- 
 tant work of his pen in later years, which 
 accidentally fell under my eye some time 
 since and was preserved. For beauty of 
 thought and elegance of diction it is worthy 
 of a place among gems of our language. 
 
 More than twenty years ago, in the obitu- 
 ary of an aged citizen, Dr. J. C. Southall 
 (now of the Central Presbyterian), then an 
 editor in Charlottesville, wrote as follows: 
 
 "The death of the young is perhaps the 
 more startling; but, to the contemplative 
 mind, the death of the aged, the disappear- 
 ance of the ripened intelligence of almost a 
 century, with all its manifold experience and 
 treasures of memory, and in the present case 
 that long life spanning like an arch two great 
 historic epochs — this, perhaps, leaves a more 
 solemn impression than when some spring- 
 tide flower drops its bloom. That is the de- 
 cay of some stately oak that has struck its 
 
The Death of the Old. 
 
 157 
 
 roots deep into the soil and thrown out noble 
 and sheltering branches, identified Avith the 
 landscape, associated with the life of many 
 human beings." 
 
 The imagery of this extract is exceeding- 
 ly fine. I have seen many a " spring-tide 
 flower" drop its bloom. There is a species 
 of bell, a delicate pink in color, low in growth, 
 and abundant in flowers, which in late sum- 
 mer and early autumn often beautifies the 
 shady or damp paths or borders of streams. 
 Short-lived at best, it is especially so when 
 culled. "A thing of beauty," indeed, frail 
 and delicate, its fading and falling bloom is 
 a fitting comparison for the youthful beauty, 
 " the grace of the fashion " of which so often 
 u perisheth " in human society. 
 
 A bed of crane's-bill filling a small cove un- 
 der a bank, which I showed a friend in an 
 afternoon's walk, was one of the loveliest 
 sights of this late spring. But a little more 
 than a week afterward no particle of color 
 was there. Those lovely petals, outspread 
 in one solid mass of simple but incompara- 
 ble bloom, lay "withered and dead." Such 
 sights are familiar to one whose native tastes 
 
158 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 carry his feet among the haunts of the wild 
 flowers. And hardly less familiar to us are 
 the drooping and fading away of loveliness 
 of person and rare endowments of mind and 
 heart, fitted to charm every beholder. 
 
 There is no flock, however watched or tended, 
 But one dead lamb is there. 
 
 But I have seen "the decay of" few " stately 
 oaks." One is indelibly graven on my memo- 
 ry. It stood on the side of a beautiful stretch 
 of level road, in a hilly region near the mount- 
 ains. There was no other tree of great size 
 along the road for a mile and a half. It was 
 a huge white-oak, branching in every direc- 
 tion at ten or twelve feet from the ground, 
 and spreading its lusty arms to a great dis- 
 tance. If not a "boundless contiguity of 
 shade," it was a delightful canopy for man 
 and beast in the heat of summer; and the 
 tired, dusty, and heated traveler halted be 
 neath its welcome coolness and dense pro- 
 tection, and felt a bond of hearty sympathy 
 with panting sheep or lolling cattle or stamp- 
 ing colts on the other side of the fence in- 
 side the inclosure. Spending many summers 
 less than a mile off, I not only passed it in 
 
The Death of the Old. 
 
 159 
 
 frequent journeys, but on hot summer nights 
 delighted to walk up to its foot and enjoy 
 the night breeze while I peeped from beneath 
 its extended arms at the stars in their silent 
 march across the sky. Oft-times I blessed 
 the man that spared it from the original for- 
 est cleared away for a wide expanse; admired 
 its lovely globular head and pale, smooth 
 leaves, and in autumn its abundant "mast.'' 
 An evil spirit entered into the owner of that 
 land. He cut off every branch, making a 
 large pile of fire-wood (doubtless excellent), 
 and left the stump an unsightly column, like 
 a sign-post. Nature struggled hard. Old as 
 the tree must have been, it put out bunches 
 of sprouts from the mangled stumps of its 
 limbs. They took on some coarse but large 
 leaves, and strove to grow and flourish as of 
 yore. I could imagine the tree to be con- 
 scious, and that it felt like the shorn Samson 
 when he awoke out of the fatal sleep, and 
 said, "I will go out, as at other times be- 
 fore, and shake myself." But, as in his case, 
 it was too late. When I last saw it the 
 sprouts were withered, and the loosening 
 bark and burned-like look of the cut ends 
 
160 'Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 of boughs showed that Byron's words were 
 fulfilled: 
 
 The massy trunk the rain feels, 
 And never more a leaf reveals. 
 
 I had sometimes thought, with a sadden- 
 ing realization of the brevity of human life, 
 that it would probably be still green and vig- 
 orous long after I had ceased to breathe, and 
 shelter many a way-worn traveler or tired 
 beast when I should be forgotten of men 
 and my place know me no more. But I have 
 lived to write its obituary. With a deep feel- 
 ing of condemnation of the barbarian who 
 destroyed it, of the vandalism that would not 
 preserve such a feature of the rural landscape, 
 such a glory of the way-side, I record its 
 end. And doubtless Dr. Southall was right. 
 The aged, and especially the aged good man, 
 is like such an oak, and his death makes on 
 44 the contemplative mind '"' an impression as 
 solemn and deep as that I experienced when 
 last I rode along that way and remembered 
 the tree of former years. Its short and dis- 
 figured trunk was like the fresh red grave 
 of a patriarch, before grass or tombstone is 
 there to break the dreariness of naked death. 
 
The Death of the Old. 161 
 
 The death of the young startles and touches 
 as when a bloom of rare loveliness drops 
 from the flower-stalk to lie irrecoverably 
 tarnished and speedily decay and disappear. 
 In poetry and fiction the death of the young 
 has furnished a theme of irresistible pathos. 
 But deeper feeling wakes in view of "the 
 disappearance of a ripened intelligence." 
 Whither gone and to what future destiny? 
 Earthly hopes have been disappointed and 
 have perished; the companions of youth and 
 active life are long since gone; a new stage 
 of life is ushered in on every side with actors 
 unrecognized; customs and fashions are won- 
 derfully transformed; there is no more a 
 place here for the octogenarian. He sighs 
 to be gone, and sees beckoning hands and 
 hears voices calling him, out of the misty 
 unknown. How thrilling the contemplation 
 of a great and entire change to him, who car- 
 ries into eternity the " manifold experience," 
 the "treasured memories" of almost a cent- 
 ury! Can we bury him, or think of him 
 when we see his vacant chair, as of an in- 
 fant of days, or even as of the youthful maid- 
 en dying at " sweet sixteen?" 
 11 
 
162 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 26. 
 THE RED SUNSETS. 
 E are having a repetition of this 
 remarkable phenomenon of last 
 year. A red sunset! Why, that 
 is nothing strange or unusual. Certainly 
 not, a sunset of brilliant coloring and clouds 
 touched with red when the sunlight is ut- 
 terly gone. Familiar prophecy of what we 
 have had quite enough of this year — dry 
 weather! But coloring so red, so deep, so 
 vivid, so intense, and so many sunsets of this 
 kind, day after day, certainly these are not 
 common. These years, 1883 and 1884, will 
 be unusual, I think, for that. The philoso- 
 phers made no satisfactory explanation or 
 discovery about them last fall. One astrono- 
 mer saw in his telescope, when directed at 
 twilight near the point of sunsetting, a flight 
 of multitudinous telescopic meteors. It was 
 conjectured that such a stream of them might 
 somehow color the sunsets after this unusual 
 fashion. Possibly; but all the meteors or 
 shooting-stars shine with a white light. They 
 
The Rfd Sunsets. 
 
 1G3 
 
 flash across the vault of heaven, leaving 
 streaks of yellow-whitish color similar to the 
 gleams of lightning in a thunder-storm. I 
 never detected in one the violet tint that 
 one sometimes perceives in lightning. They 
 give not the faintest hint of red in any con- 
 ceivable shade. Whatever their cause, our 
 autumn sky has glorified itself again with 
 these surpassingly beautiful sunset hues. The 
 parched ground and dwindling water-courses, 
 the scorched and dry herbage and the dusty 
 plains, are depressing; but who can behold 
 these gorgeous emblazonings of the western 
 heavens without emotion, without an exalt- 
 ing, thrilling sensation ? I saw one such 
 sunset under touching and suggestive cir- 
 cumstances, a few days ago. A railroad 
 train was carrying me along in view of some 
 regions connected with my ministerial labors 
 a good many years ago. I had not visited 
 the place for a longtime, nor indeed had but 
 once been in sight of it. The village rose 
 on my sight, distinct, but across a wide val- 
 ley, and made a little gloomy by the ap- 
 proaching evening shades. The sense of 
 time, long-past events, quickened and in- 
 
164 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 creased a melancholy association of ideas 
 otherwise already in my mind. When I first 
 knew the place I became acquainted with a 
 married couple, wedded but little longer 
 than myself and wife. We were their guests, 
 and a friendship began which was destined 
 to become stronger and more intimate in 
 later years. The young wife, not a mere 
 girl, was lovely in person and character, and 
 the center of life in her sweet home in that 
 ancient village. Years passed, the war fol- 
 lowing closely those pleasant days ; w r e met 
 again in another place, and renewed the old 
 ties of acquaintance and friendship. In each 
 family there were children growing up, and 
 by that fair mother's side grew a lovely girl, 
 destined to greater beauty than the mother's) 
 and gifted with Uncommon powers of fasci- 
 nation. The mother's health had long been 
 threatened, and seemed more fragile just 
 when the daughter had bloomed into full 
 maturity of youthful loveliness, the attrac- 
 tion in every assembly, the cynosure of evr 
 ery admiring eye. Alas! the arrow which 
 had fatally wounded the mother passed un- 
 suspected through the daughter's heart also. 
 
The 'Red Sunsets. 
 
 165 
 
 Quickly, almost without warning, the deadly 
 symptoms developed, progressed without ar- 
 rest, and in less than a year she was gone. 
 Strangely enough, the peril of her loved one 
 seemed to act as a temporary cure of the 
 mother. She appeared to be better, under- 
 went without failing all the fatigue and mis- 
 ery of that long watching and waiting for 
 death. But, when her darling was laid in 
 the grave, she seemed no longer capable of 
 resisting her enemy's approach, and, sinking 
 steadily, in the course of two years lay by 
 the side of her child, her grave by the side 
 of that which had swallowed up beauty and 
 grace and hope. The two graves were at 
 that old village across the valley. I could 
 not see them, but I knew they were there; 
 I felt their presence. In the declining light 
 of day the landscape was mournful ; it seemed 
 to chant the dirge over buried love and joy 
 and hope. My heart sunk with the feeling 
 that this is the end of all. No one can stay 
 the march of that dread procession by which 
 life and all it holds dear here sweep into the 
 remorseless abyss of the tomb. "What after 
 death for me remains?" Just then the train, 
 
166 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 sweeping onward toward the east, brought 
 the receding village and the crest of hills on 
 which it stood against the sunset point, and 
 the matchless hues of the "red sunset" rose 
 above its trees and houses, above the spot 
 where the grave-yard was. Next, above the 
 ground, was a very deep red, as of blood 
 wrung from crushed and sorrowing hearts, 
 and upward, suffusing the higher strata of 
 air, was a delicate and indescribably beauti- 
 ful rose and violet tint intermingled, blend- 
 ing with the white rays of the twilight. It 
 rushed upon my heart that it is a natural 
 prophecy of the resurrection. I felt the sup- 
 port, the comfort of the hope of Christian- 
 ity. The words of Beattie were echoed in 
 my soul :. 
 
 See Truth, Love, and Mercy in triumph descending, 
 And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom ; 
 
 On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending, 
 And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb. 
 
 The night fell around me in thicker, darker 
 folds; but there were light and peace in my 
 heart. Death had spoken in solemn tones; 
 but Nature, clad in robes of light and love- 
 liness, had proclaimed the gospel of immor- 
 tality and salvation. 
 
u Custer's Last Charge" 167 
 
 No. 27. 
 
 CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE." 
 5 OME weeks ago I went with a 
 friend to look at this painting-, 
 the work of the Virginia artist, 
 Mr. Elder. It was about to be sent North 
 for exhibition among Custer's own people, 
 and probably for sale where money is more 
 abundant among the patrons of art. I say 
 " Custer's own people," not because I am dis- 
 posed to admit, after twenty years' peace and 
 quietness, that the Virginians are not "citi- 
 zens of the United States" as much as they 
 were in 1860, nor because I do not claim our 
 share of the glory won by the deeds of any 
 brave and gallant soldier of the United States 
 army. No one appreciated Custer's intre- 
 pidity and clash more than the men who fought 
 him at Trevilian's and in the Valley. But 
 Northern people are his people by blood and 
 State lines, and by full alliance and sympa- 
 thy in the civil war. And they should feel 
 a deeper interest than we in his fame. But 
 I am glad that a Virginia painter has placed 
 
168 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 on canvas the last sad scene in his career, 
 and immortalized, as I trust, that chivalric 
 and desperate charge. 
 
 It is a picture that thrills the beholder. 
 You are transported into the midst of that 
 wild Western landscape and that mortal 
 struggle with overwhelming numbers of 
 savage foes. The artist has selected, with 
 skill, the features of the combat which he 
 has chosen to occupy the foreground. In 
 the center, the United States cavalry come 
 like a storm-cloud, Custer leading on a steed 
 flying like the wind, while his upraised saber 
 hewing his way has for the time cleared the 
 front. Before him the bugler lies prostrate, 
 his bugle yet clasped in his dead hand. Sev- 
 eral troopers, wounded more or less desper- 
 ately, perhaps in the previous hours of the 
 light, are on the ground almost under his 
 feet. One of them has raised himself on his 
 elbow, and done his last service by shooting 
 through the heart an Indian chief on foot 
 immediately before Custer, and about to 
 close upon him with a huge hunting-knife 
 open and uplifted. It may be he had ap- 
 proached to scalp the soldier, who shot him 
 
" Custer s Last Charge." 169 
 
 when the charge was made. At any rate, 
 he is finished! His left-hand thrown up in 
 mortal agony, his features struck with death, 
 his mighty figure falling backward, proclaim 
 the soldier's deadly aim. He reminds me of 
 a dying poacher, shot by the pursuers, and 
 falling from a crossing-log with his load of 
 chamois fastened to his shoulders, which I 
 saw once in a piece of Tyrolean or German 
 wood-carving. It was marvelous to me to 
 see produced in wood those expressions of 
 despair and mortal hurt. The same are here 
 in this Indian. But somewhat farther to the 
 left a yet more striking chief has drawn a 
 bow, with arrow to the head, and is aiming 
 directly at the great cavalry leader. As he 
 is shooting by like a bolt from the skies, and 
 his saber is about to descend upon the head 
 of the chief who bars his passage, and who 
 is just then shot by the prostrate cavalryman, 
 he is in deadly peril from the shaft of the 
 picturesque and athletic son of the forest. 
 Beyond this Indian another is falling a vic- 
 tim to the revolver of a trooper charging not 
 far behind his leader; but none is able to 
 send a shot, where just then it seems most 
 
170 'Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 needed, at the owner of that deadly bow. 
 To the right, In front, are savages skulking 
 behind dead horses, with arms in their hands, 
 and on the extreme right, starting from the 
 ground and ravines are scores of the enem} r , 
 ' rushing forward, in all sorts of attitudes, and 
 tiring upon the charging column. The effect 
 of their fire is seen in the reeling forms of 
 horsemen behind the doomed General. The 
 picture, in the few figures seen on the left, 
 makes suggestion of the same movement 
 from that direction to defeat this desperate 
 effort to cut through. As yet the fatal mo- 
 ment has not arrived. The fatal arrow has 
 not left the string, nor any shot been fired to 
 bring down that imposing form in the fore- 
 ground. The horse, with extended nostrils, 
 and feet that paw the air in flying leaps, is 
 fleeter than death, and on his back sits su- 
 perbly poised, in hunting-shirt costume, with 
 grim determination, and tensely excited will 
 and courage written on every feature, the 
 hero of so many contests with greater foemen, 
 about to fall by mere dint of numbers and 
 overwhelming advantages of position and 
 knowledge of the ground. He rides to his 
 
"Custer's Last Charge." 171 
 
 doom, as befits such a man, taking the last 
 desperate chance. If his command can be 
 rescued b} 7 desperate valor, it shall be. Woe 
 to the enemy upon whom he charges while 
 life yet animates that gallant heart and em- 
 powers that sinewy arm ! 
 
 The coloring and perspective are good. I 
 presume the artist made special study, it may 
 be by personal visit, of the very ground of 
 the catastrophe. To one who has seen pict- 
 ures drawn from nature of that region in 
 Dakota, and the other Territories of the 
 North-west, there is truth to nature in every 
 trait. The plains and ravines of that home 
 of the bison and red man, where Custer and 
 his men perished, will always have on that 
 account a more tragic interest. 
 
 I trust that the last of such encounters as 
 this has taken place. Until the eating tooth 
 of time has devoured the race of Indians, or 
 the happier food of civilization has assimi- 
 lated them to such conformity with the dom- 
 inant race in habits and manners as will re- 
 move forever all occasions of conflict, I pray 
 that no more blood of either may be shed in 
 such war. I confess to have felt a pitying 
 
172 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 admiration of even " Captain Jack" and " Sit- 
 ting Bull," still more of ''Chief Joseph," a 
 far noble* and better spirit, not stained, as 
 the others, with treachery and murder. In 
 the remote obscurity of ages without annals 
 is the origin of these people. Their ances- 
 tors may have been on a rude scale and with 
 unmerciful power to the races of " Mound- 
 builders," who once peopled the West, what 
 the English and Anglo-American have been 
 to them. Providence, I am certain, has done 
 them no injustice. But may the last clays 
 of their existence be peaceful and bloodless: 
 may no "Logan" of the latter times recite 
 in pathetic speech the extermination of his 
 kinsmen by rifle and revolver; and may the 
 Indian of the closing years of the nineteenth 
 century be better represented by Checote 
 than by Sitting Bull! 
 
Ice-making. 
 
 173 
 
 No. 28. 
 ICE-MAKING. 
 
 AYS a recent writer: " Of all the 
 projects that have excited the 
 ridicule of the unimaginative of 
 times gone by, perhaps none has appeared 
 more exceedingly funny and chimerical than 
 that of producing at will, by mechanism op- 
 erated by heat, a freezing cold, and that 
 without the use of ice or any previously con- 
 gealed substance, and without regard to at- 
 mospheric temperature." In the city of 
 Richmond there is a low brick building, on 
 the western end of Canal street, upon which 
 " the midsummer sun" does not shine "dim," 
 but in full -orbed meridian splendor and 
 power, out of which project pipes that by 
 their hissing emission of steam give token 
 more of a saw-mill than any thing else. The 
 buzz of the saw, however, and harsh rending 
 of plank do not issue from its peaceful inte- 
 rior. "Positively no admittance except on 
 business" warns off the curious, and except 
 an occasional workman going in and out, and 
 
174 Beer cations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 the sallying forth of red-painted ice-carts, 
 there is nothing to indicate that there is any 
 thing particular going on, or the kind of 
 business there transacted. 
 
 I am told, for I have never been in it, that 
 this is where ice is made artificially "by a 
 mechanism operated by heat." " Without 
 regard to atmospheric temperature," without 
 use of any "previously congealed substance," 
 in sultry, sweltering August, in mild, non- 
 freezing winters, in Indian summer, and 
 balmy spring, in the day-time, and at "three 
 o'clock p.m." (the hottest part of hot days), 
 they go on quietly making out "of James 
 River water" ice, that never saw a pond or 
 cool, sylvan retreat, which does not come 
 from the Kennebec or anywhere else remote 
 and nearer to the North Pole, but out of the 
 laboratory of "fair science," which so far 
 from frowning on its " humble birth " in that 
 unpretending building, rejoices over its for- 
 mation as one of its latest and greatest tri- 
 umphs. And they sell it as cheaply as other 
 ice. I do not know what particular process 
 is used at this ice-factory. I suppose little 
 can be seen by inspection, and one must be 
 
Ice making. 
 
 175 
 
 somewhat acquainted with recent chemistry 
 to appreciate what he can see. Some of the 
 readers of the Advocate may, however, like 
 to know something in general of the process 
 of ice-making by artificial means; and, for 
 their benefit, I make use of an article in the 
 October number of the Popular Science 
 Monthly, by Guy B. Seely, on the latest dis- 
 covery in this direction, that of a Frenchman, 
 now dead, Du Motay. The quotation at the 
 beginning of this article is from Mr. Seely. 
 The basis, he tells us, of the principal sys- 
 tems has been "the volatilization of a liquid 
 in vacuo by means of a gas-pump." Ether 
 and ammonia have been the substances ex- 
 perimented with chiefly. "The object sought 
 has been the most economical method of em- 
 ploying those substances that are capable of 
 producing the greatest degree of cold" (by 
 volatilization). "But a difficulty is encoun- 
 tered in the high pressures of the gases pro- 
 duced in the pump:" the pressure increasing 
 directly as the cold-producing power. The 
 "obvious drawbacks" of such pressure are 
 liability to explosion, inflammability, rapid 
 wear and tear of the machinery, etc. Du 
 
176 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 Motay "sought to combine two or more 
 liquids which should have the property, in 
 combination, of mutually neutralizing the 
 defective features they exhibited when used 
 separately." He employed ether and sul- 
 phurous acid. "The inflammability of the 
 ether was nullified by the sulphurous acid; 
 a perfect lubricant was obtained, and the 
 substance had no corrosive action on the 
 metals employed." But, above all, the ether 
 absorbs a large part of the gas of the acid, 
 and "reduces the mechanical problem to 
 that of liquefying a gas having a pressure 
 not approximating that of sulphurous acid, 
 viz., fifty to eighty pounds or more per 
 square inch, but barely more than that of 
 ether itself, viz., twenty pounds. " In other 
 words, "the ether is found to have accom- 
 plished the greater part of the work, and a 
 law of nature governing the action of certain 
 chemicals in combination is availed of to re- 
 duce the mechanical labor of liquefaction to 
 a minimum." It is this "mechanical labor" 
 which requires a steam-engine or "mechan- 
 ism operated by heat " to make cold. The 
 gas produced by the volatilizing pump 
 
Ice-making. 
 
 177 
 
 worked by steam must be compressed by 
 the machinery until it becomes a liquid 
 again, that it may be available for further 
 employment and be disposed of readily and 
 profitably. Mr. Seely describes the process 
 as follows : " The freezing agent, ethylo- 
 sulphurous dioxide, or glycerine and am- 
 monia, or whatever be the compound em- 
 ployed, is placed within the ' refrigerator,' 
 which consists of tubular coils immersed in 
 an uncongealable mixture. A double-acting 
 vacuum-pump volatilizes the agent in the 
 refrigerator coils, and this is attended with 
 the development of an intense cold which is 
 communicated to the surrounding mixture, 
 and the latter, by means of a circulating 
 pump, is made to flow through a suitable 
 tank containing vessels of water to be fro- 
 zen. . . . The discharge pipe of the circu- 
 lating pump communicates with a con- 
 denser," which receives the volatilized liquid, 
 and where the gas is liquefied again and ul- 
 timately restored to the refrigerator " to be 
 again volatilized/' the waste being small, as 
 of steam in low-pressure engines. "The 
 time consumed in the* process of freezing the 
 12 
 
178 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 water-cans ranges from twenty-four to thir- 
 ty-six hours," the insulation of the tanks be- 
 ing more or less perfect in different mechan- 
 isms, and causing delay when not perfect. 
 I hope these extracts are intelligible enough 
 to the ordinary reader to prevent his being 
 as vague in his notions of ice-making as he 
 probably is of the Bain printing telegraph. 
 
 This artificial manufacture of ice is a great 
 boon to hot regions and to us of temperate 
 regions in mild winters; and as cold is man- 
 ufactured, the process can be applied, and 
 has been, to arrangements for cooling build- 
 ings in intensely hot weather. That will 
 probably always be a luxury, whereas the 
 \ce is now very nearly a necessity of life, and 
 is placed in reach of very poor people. 
 
 My readers will permit a presiding elder 
 to say that there is no need for a process of 
 artificial ice-making in the churches. The 
 natural production there is at present, like 
 the condition of the iron furnaces and cotton 
 factories, a case of over-production. The 
 demand is fully met. We need heating, and 
 not freezing; seventy-five degrees above, and 
 not ten below, zero. 
 
Ice-waking. 
 
 179 
 
 Come, Holy Dove, from the heavenly hill, 
 And warm our frozen hearts. 
 
 O for men "fervent in spirit, serving the 
 Lord ! " We have a great many who are " not 
 slothful in business." But in spiritual affec- 
 tions, religious activities, devout fervor, they 
 are sadly deficient. Their spirits have got 
 into the tanks of the ice-factory owned by 
 Messrs. World, Elesh & Devil. May they 
 have an explosion in that factory that will 
 shatter the refrigerator and lay waste the 
 gas-pump ! 
 
180 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 29. 
 SORROWFUL HOLIDAYS. 
 E rejoice to know that the time- 
 honored seasons draw nigh in 
 which custom and associations 
 place happy greetings and social festivity. 
 N~o churlish nature, in most of us, repels 
 their bright approach. Certainly none in 
 me stands guard to keep off these gladsome 
 days. I am delighted to witness the gam. 
 bols and frolicsome glee of children — the 
 bright, hopeful talk and sports of young 
 people, free of care and buoyant with the 
 wine of healthy life in their veins,, charm 
 me, and almost make me wish myself young 
 again. I never was given to unseemly dis- 
 sipation, and do not admire the relish that 
 some grown folks have for gayety and folly 
 at the holidays, verging on, if not reaching 
 into, drunkenness and the orgies of sensual- 
 ism and utter ungodliness. Why should a 
 rational being, because it is Christmas, for- 
 get God and eternity and make himself a 
 dog or a brute over eggnog, oyster-suppers, 
 
Sorrowful Holidays. 
 
 181 
 
 and riotous living generally? Why should 
 he forsake home-life and innocent pleasures 
 and spend the small hours of night at some 
 club-house or loose-living man's room, and 
 drink of the cess-pools of dissipation? "From 
 all such withdraw thyself." But the pleas- 
 ant Christmas dinner, the New-year reunions, 
 uncursed by fashion and intemperance — the 
 holiday enjoyments at once intellectual and 
 elevating, the music, the reading, the social 
 converse, the pure pleasures, the temporary 
 laying aside of business cares, severe study, 
 or labor — who was ever the worse for these? 
 Pleasant recollections of them come across 
 my heart-strings, and make music like the 
 breathings of the zephyrs upon the ^Eolian 
 harp. I see the Christmas-trees loaded and 
 waiting at midnight for the little ones asleep 
 in their cribs, whose chirping at awaking 
 will rival the birds of spring; I hear the 
 tones of voices long silent, the strains of 
 music from hands now cold in death; "the 
 light of other days" breaks in upon my soul, 
 and I thank God for past joys that have left 
 no sting, for "days that arc no more," but 
 are unregretted and un forgotten. 
 
182 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 Sometimes a shadow falls athwart our holi- 
 days, a shadow of sickness, bereavement, or 
 some special loss or calamity. Such was my 
 case this year. While people greeted each 
 other and the season with gladness, while 
 bells and merriment, and the evergreens and 
 the carols, and the full tables and the crowded 
 parlors, expressed the welcome of Christmas, 
 I lay helpless well-nigh, unable to stand, and 
 without movement save under the penalty 
 of pain; I, who have known so little of se- 
 rious sickness, have spent so little time in 
 bed save to sleep, and that soundly; I, who 
 have been such a pedestrian, have so loved 
 to walk and rejoiced in my power to propel 
 myself over hill and dale, if not to " paddle 
 my own canoe," to climb mountains, and 
 make long journeys. Happily, I could read, 
 and had something to read; but, with all re- 
 liefs obtainable, how irksome the days of 
 confinement, the sense of disability, the mo- 
 notony of a sick-bed life! How welcome 
 the symptoms of approaching cure, the abil- 
 ity to " rise up and walk," the clothing once 
 more resumed, the breath of out-doors, the 
 locomotion, though at first slow and cramped ! 
 
Sorrowful Holidays. 
 
 183 
 
 But Sorrow, grave brother of Pain, greeted 
 me also. He came just before the new year. 
 And as the light of that day broke, with so 
 much of hope and gladness and joyful ex- 
 pectation to many, it fell on me at the death- 
 bed of a dear and treasured loved one. The 
 bright, kind, tender eyes, fall of sympathy 
 and charity, were closed to be opened no 
 more; the heaving breast still labored with 
 the last efforts of dissolving nature, but the 
 generous heart, so true, so high-toned, so 
 unselfish, was soon to be still; the hands, so 
 soft in their touch, so skillful, so wonderfully 
 ready in emergencies of life and death, were 
 lying still or twitching with the slight shiv- 
 ering, convulsive motion that seemed to 
 shrink from the cold touch of Death, the 
 enemy they had so often successfully resisted 
 in others; the well-known features were set- 
 tling into the calmness and unbroken repose 
 of the last sleep. Two more days, winter 
 days, short and cold, gloomy and withering 
 in breath and aspect, were to be given of this 
 "death in life;" but no glance of recogni- 
 tion, no voice of cordial, affectionate greet- 
 ing, no call for any aid nor any polite ac- 
 
184 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 knowledgment of any little service, should 
 again give token of lingering on the shore 
 of time. These had all gone out with the 
 old year, dead in his time and lot. And 
 then came the actual snapping of the links 
 of life, attenuated to the last degree of thin- 
 ness; the last moment, for which nothing 
 seems altogether to prepare us, which has in 
 it something of a surprise after all. A little 
 gazing at the dead face, tender kisses upon 
 the pale, cool brow; and after that — "earth 
 to earth, ashes to ashes." We had tenderly 
 followed him "to the last lonely point of 
 earth;" we had laid his remains by the side 
 of the graves of his children — the four girls, 
 from a lovely babe to a beautiful young wife, 
 who had preceded him in the course of thirty 
 years ; and that drama of life was over. Forty 
 years of rare public usefulness, a record of 
 not having lived in vain, and, thank God 
 too, of at last casting a weary head with re- 
 pentant tears upon the Redeemer's breast 
 "without one plea" but his blood, and all 
 of earth to him is gone, and he is " beyond 
 the sun." 
 
 The new year has been crowned by sorrow 
 
Sorrowful Holidays. 185 
 
 The chaplet is cold as the ice which holds 
 the frosty ground and crackles under the foot; 
 it is also pure as the snow of winter; its les- 
 son has no taint of evil or falsehood; it speaks 
 of life eternal, of God, and the land where 
 tears never fall. Listening to its teachings, 
 self is withered and sin cast out. 
 
186 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 No. 30. 
 
 A FUTURE STATE. 
 
 'O most minds there are attractions 
 ! in literature wherein the dread 
 unknown, the mysterious and 
 awful hereafter, is revealed. Be it that we 
 know it is man's imagining, or dreaming, or 
 surmising — still we are powerfully drawn to 
 such pictures. From the plain but master- 
 ful allegory of John Bunyan, with its River 
 of Death and Celestial City — the city of 
 which distant views were had from the De- 
 lectable Mountains — to the "Physical Theo- 
 ry of a Future Life," by Isaac Taylor, and 
 "Beyond the Gates," by Elizabeth Stuart 
 Phelps, and "A Little Pilgrim," by Mrs. Oli- 
 phant; and, above all, the noble Christian 
 poem of Bickersteth — "Yesterday, To-day, 
 and Forever" — the theme finds new pens to 
 treat it and an inexhaustible supply of read- 
 ers. It is an involuntary tribute of human 
 nature to the glory and importance of "the 
 things that are not seen." It may be that 
 curiosity, a prying into new and wonderful 
 
A Future State. 
 
 187 
 
 matters, has part in this readiness to deal 
 with such topics. But it is mainly a nobler 
 feeling. It is a realization that surpassing 
 interest attaches to the life to come which 
 shall be eternal ; that its occupations and 
 sources of enjoyment and satisfaction are of 
 overwhelming significance to us who are so 
 soon to enter upon them and rely upon them 
 for our good. And it is a feeling after the 
 loved and lost, as men sometimes in dreams 
 and half-unconsciousness grope and grasp in 
 the gloom of thought, if haply they may 
 clasp to their aching and hungry hearts some 
 long-absent dear one of the household group. 
 
 I have spent some leisure hours of recent 
 days in reading one of the books before 
 named, " Beyond the Gates." One of the 
 evangelists lately laboring in Richmond, I 
 have understood, warned his hearers against 
 reading it ; and it is certainly not evangelical 
 in its stand-point : rather it is rationalistic, 
 "Broad Church," semi-Unitarian. It would 
 be a misfortune indeed to receive any intima- 
 tion from it which is contradicted by Script- 
 ure. It more than hints, for example, at a 
 second probation; it transfers to a high and 
 
188 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 most honorable felicity persons who have 
 simply exhibited a great natural virtue, such 
 as the sacrifice of life to save men in peril; 
 it distinguishes dimly, if at all, between the 
 faith of assent and that of the heart " with" 
 which "man believeth unto righteousness." 
 It, nevertheless, has many valuable features, 
 and may be read with profit by many per- 
 sons. Perhaps it is like a razor, not to be 
 intrusted to children, and in the paw of a 
 monkey useful to cut his own throat or 
 wound seriously another animal, but valua- 
 ble to the adult being with hirsute posses- 
 sions. It may be judiciously employed to 
 deepen the sense of the eternal life, so dull 
 in us after all, and so easily dulled yet more 
 into blunt forgetfulness of every thing outside 
 the domain of sense. It contains some good 
 lessons, impressively taught. The value of 
 personal holiness is presented in a strong 
 light; the love and sympathy of our Lord 
 are beautifully exhibited — a poor, unhappy 
 girl, who had none of her own family and 
 kindred in the world of glory to welcome 
 her, tells that she was met first by the Mas- 
 ter himself, and greeted and protectingly ush- 
 
A Future Slate. 189 
 
 ered into its amazing and transcendent hap- 
 piness; there are some ingenious and effect- 
 ive touches concerning devoutness, submis- 
 sion to the Divine will, Providence, etc. I 
 am glad I read it; I think I have kept the 
 wheat and let the chaff go. 
 
 Nothing has ever impressed me more deep- 
 ly than the first book of " Yesterday, To-day, 
 and Forever" — the Death of the Seer and 
 his Descent into Hades. That brings home 
 death and eternity very vividly to a soul yet 
 in the flesh. But I have no faith in the pre- 
 millennialism of the book, which is yet one 
 of its most conspicuous features. Men like 
 Bickersteth and Kyle cannot write without 
 saying all they mean and know. So, Eliza- 
 beth Stuart Phelps is earnest and outspoken; 
 error with her is deeper and more injurious, 
 but she is a disciple of our Lord, too; she 
 loves him in sincerity. Many a Christian 
 soul will enter into this extract, with which 
 I close: 
 
 " For I knew as I sat in that solemn hour, 
 with my face to the sea and my soul with 
 him, while sweeter than any song of all the 
 waves of heaven or earth to sea-lovers, 
 
190 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 sounded his voice who did commune with 
 me — verily I knew, for then and forever, that 
 earth had been a void to me because I had 
 him not, and that heaven could be no heaven 
 to me without him. All which I had known 
 of earthly love; all that I had missed; the 
 dreams from which I had been startled ; the 
 hopes that had evaded me; the patience 
 which comes from knowing that one may not 
 even try not to be misunderstood ; the strug- 
 gle to keep a solitary heart sweet; the an- 
 ticipation of desolate age which casts its 
 shadow backward upon the dial of middle 
 life; the paralysis of feeling which creeps 
 on with its disuse ; the distrust of one's 
 atrophied faculties of loving; the sluggish 
 wonder if one is ceasing to be lovable; the 
 growing difficulty of explaining one's self 
 when it is necessary, because no one being 
 more than any other cares for the expla- 
 nation ; the things which a lonely life con- 
 verts into silence that cannot be broken, 
 swept upon me like rapids, as turning to 
 look into his dazzling face, I said: 'This — 
 all this — he understands.'" 
 
Hollywood Cemetery. 
 
 191 
 
 No. 31. 
 
 HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY. 
 
 from the tombs a doleful 
 sound!" is an exclamation which 
 j expresses with many persons the 
 
 only feelings or sentiments connected in their 
 minds with cemeteries. They hate with a 
 deadly hatred allusions to death and the 
 grave, and, if they could, would banish all 
 recurrences of such disagreeable topics. But 
 mortality is too vast and fresh a subject to 
 be banished by a volition. It intrudes upon 
 our thoughts; its sad and gloomy acces- 
 sories force themselves upon our sight. 
 "A vaunt! " we may exclaim, but the gloomy 
 figure will not disappear. Door-bells or han- 
 dles muffled with crape, tolling bells, slowly 
 nodding hearses, freshly dug earth in omi- 
 nous-lookingmounds, black garments and sad 
 countenances, desolate homes and painful 
 vacancies in family circles, are in our sight 
 or smiting our ears; and in the vicinity of 
 our large towns the "cities of the dead" en- 
 large their borders continually to remind us 
 
192 He creations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 unceasingly of " the inevitable hour" which 
 awaits us all. 
 
 In the first series of these Recreations I 
 wrote of the desirableness of cemeteries at 
 all our country churches. My thoughts to- 
 day are running on grave-yards and the 
 tombs, but not with that particular applica- 
 tion, nor with the gloomy and doleful asso- 
 ciations of unbelief and worldliness. 
 
 The celebrated cemetery of Hollywood- 
 lovely indeed in natural situation and adorn- 
 ment, and improved to a considerable de- 
 gree by well-directed art — is within easy 
 reach of a walker of moderate powers, and 
 very often attracts my wandering footsteps. 
 Alike in cold weather and in warm — most 
 of all in the bright soft days of our fall sea- 
 son, dreamy and sweet — I find its secluded 
 walks and vales a pleasant resort. The beau- 
 ty of nature pleases the eye, the general as- 
 pect of the place and its associations soothe 
 restlessness, and in many ways wholesome 
 lessons, not always sad nor ever very de- 
 pressing, suggest themselves. 
 
 I am drawn to it by the resting-places of 
 that mortal part which was once inhabited 
 
Hollywood Cemetery. 
 
 193 
 
 by many of my dear friends. The little spot 
 they themselves do not occupy. That mound 
 of earth does not cover James A. Dun- 
 can, nor that grass-covered grave hide from 
 sight the venerable and beloved George W. 
 Langhorne. But they are the places of 
 earth which hold the bodies once glorified by 
 the presence of the spiritual intelligences we 
 knew and loved, marred and decaying under 
 the power of the grave now, but some day 
 to be "raised in power" and reanimated by 
 those intelligences. Sacred and dear, then, 
 to sight and memory those hallowed spots — 
 not to be avoided and glanced at with gloom 
 and doubting fear and horror; but tenderly 
 visited from time to time, helping us to think 
 lovingly and with hope and Christian joy of 
 them and their faith and love in Christ Jesus. 
 
 It is a round of visits — sometimes shorter, 
 sometimes longer, always sweetly consoling, 
 with a subdued, partially melancholy satis- 
 faction — that I pay when I take my walk 
 through the cemetery. The number of 
 friends to be called on enlarges steadily even 
 here, far away from the scenes and friend- 
 ships of my early life. Several have been 
 13 
 
194 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 added of late. Brother ministers, fathers in 
 Christ, some of whom I listened to and knew 
 in my youth, and younger men, " mine equals 
 and acquaintance," are here. I lovingly sa- 
 lute them all, and linger near some of them 
 w r ith deeper affection. Faithful friends are 
 here too, and some special cases — former pu- 
 pils — upon whose early graves the tears of 
 their old teacher have fallen. Green be the 
 grass and sweet the flowers that cover their 
 dust! Beneath that mound is stilled the 
 heart that once beat high with love and hope 
 and trust and all sweet affections. I will 
 come time and again to look upon it, and 
 revive the thoughts of that faithful friend- 
 ship which was unchanged and un dimmed 
 " even unto death." It must be fresh' and 
 strong and pure in heaven, though its min- 
 istries on earth have ceased, or, if they reach 
 me now, are bestowed upon an unconscious 
 object. 
 
 At least eight of the deceased ministers of 
 our Conference are buried at Hollywood — 
 over four of whom monuments are erected. 
 A minister somewhat distinguished, of an- 
 other Conference, is also interred here — the 
 
Hollywood Cemetery. 195 
 
 .Rev. M. M. Henkle, D.D., of the Tennessee 
 Conference. lie died during the war, in 
 1864, and, I think, in a hospital while acting 
 as chaplain. A head-board of plain wood, 
 near the splendid Masonic monument of Dr. 
 Dove, marks the resting-place of this man of 
 God. Its inscription is fading, and the board 
 itself must be near to utter decay. Perhaps 
 we have waited long enough for his brethren 
 to erect something more durable — let us in 
 Virginia put a simple head-stone at the grave 
 of a holy and useful man of no common or- 
 der. The soil of the Old Dominion holds 
 his bones — let her Methodist sons mark his 
 grave. 
 
196 Recreations of a Presiding Eider. 
 
 No. 32. 
 
 MONUMENTS IN HOLLYWOOD. 
 
 Y last paper referred to the natural 
 beauty of Hollywood. It is in- 
 deed " beautiful for situation," and 
 its natural advantages have been availed of 
 till, from the ivy-covered lodge-gates onward 
 to the new portion of the cemetery, every 
 aspect of the vales and slopes and brooks ap- 
 peals to the sense of beauty in every visitor. 
 The natural growth of holly, cypress, sweet- 
 gum, and oak receives a large accession, not 
 out of proportion, however, of trees and 
 shrubs not indigenous, such as magnolias and 
 all kinds of evergreens. Flowering shrubs 
 and plants are abundant, and in spring and 
 summer "all looks flowery" and "sweet," 
 with just enough that might be called " wild " 
 to charm. 
 
 The enlargement of the cemetery, made 
 these latter years, is nearly destitute of trees. 
 It lies high and dry, however, with a slight 
 undulation, and atones for its bareness by 
 the surpassingly delightful view of the river 
 
Monuments in Hollywood. 197 
 
 scenery — the finest portion of "the Falls" 
 being just opposite, as well as Bellisle. The 
 finest monument in Hollywood, that of the 
 late Charles Talbott, is in this part, and, to- 
 gether with the granite columns in honor of 
 Drs. Plumer and Jeter, may be seen from 
 almost all points along the southern bank 
 of the James. A liberal and judicious sys- 
 tem of planting will soon leave little to be 
 desired here. 
 
 As many of my readers may never see 
 Hollywood, some account of its monuments 
 may not be uninteresting. 
 
 On the loftiest point, near the edge of the 
 old cemetery, and rather overhanging the 
 river and canal, just above the old pump- 
 house of the City Water-works, stands the 
 modest mausoleum within whose open-work 
 may be seen the granite sarcophagus inclos- 
 ing the coffin of James Monroe, President of 
 the United States from 1817 to 1825. In- 
 cluding the recently inaugurated President 
 Cleveland, twenty-two men have held this 
 high office for whole terms or parts thereof. 
 Only four remain alive, and one of these 
 (Gen. U. S. Grant) is probably on his death- 
 
198 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 bed.* Three died on the 4th of July (Inde- 
 pendence day), and President Monroe was 
 one of these. A short inscription, on a cop- 
 per-plate, says the remains of this " good and 
 honored son" of Virginia were, by order of 
 the General Assembly, removed from New 
 York, where he died and was at first buried, 
 to Hollywood July 5, 1858; so they will 
 have slept this summer as long in the soil of 
 Virginia as they did in that of "the Em- 
 pire State." 
 
 Mr. Monroe is eclipsed in history by the 
 brighter names of his predecessors, Wash- 
 ington, Jefferson, and Madison ; but he was 
 the central figure of a peaceful era, and 
 had no opposition to his election for either 
 term, which fortune has fallen to nobody 
 since, as it did to none before except Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 In the circle surrounding the mausoleum, 
 in which are some striking monuments and 
 names of distinction and interest, is the grave, 
 as yet unmarked, of John Tyler, another 
 Virginia President of the United States. A 
 
 * Ex-President Grant died at Mt. McGregor, New York, 
 July 23, 1885. 
 
Monuments in Hollywood. 199 
 
 married daughter lies near him with a pretty 
 carved head-stone. The father, a really great 
 man in very many respects, partaker in the 
 active politics of two historic epochs, was the 
 lirst Vice-president who assumed the Presi- 
 dency by reason of the death of his superior 
 in office. Disappointing the party who elect- 
 ed him, he incurred their bitter dislike, and 
 Henry Clay, their great leader, dubbed Mr. 
 Tyler " His Accidency." But the fierce par- 
 ty passions of over thirty years ago are bur- 
 ied with the men. "Also their love and their 
 hatred and their envy are now perished." The 
 Legislature of Virginia-should erect a mon- 
 ument over the grave of ex-President Tyler. 
 He is one of her greatest men; his resting- 
 place should be marked. 
 
 No other cemetery contains the graves of 
 two Presidents, unless the two Adamses 
 (John and John Quincy) are buried to- 
 gether at Quincy, Mass. The former died 
 there, but the latter died in the House 
 of Representatives at Washington in 1848. 
 I do not remember, but probably his body 
 was carried to Quincy. If so, that little 
 old " town ,? and Richmond share the honor. 
 
200 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 The tombs of other noted politicians ar- 
 rest the eye as we wander over the grounds. 
 
 A square, low, granite tomb near the splen- 
 did monument of Mr. Talbott, in the new 
 cemetery, bears this inscription: "Here lies 
 John Eandolph, of Roanoke. Born June 
 2, 1773. Died May 24, 1833. His remains 
 were removed from Roanoke, Charlotte coun- 
 ty, Va., to this spot December 13, 1879." 
 Unique, sensitive, proud, with a tongue like 
 a Damascene blade, this most aristocratic of 
 republicans will be remembered as long as 
 eccentric genius is unforgotten. Every thing 
 he had possessed an elegance peculiar to the 
 man. My old friend, John C. Blackvvell — 
 who, alas! is gone to the world of spirits 
 also — had one of the many copies of the Greek 
 Testament collected by Randolph. It was 
 Griesbach's edition, in binding and finish 
 was singularly nice and beautiful, and was 
 bought at the sale at Roanoke after the death 
 of the great commoner. 
 
 Near to President Monroe's tomb, yet not 
 in the circle around it, is the monument of 
 Hon. James A. Seddon, Representative in 
 Congress for several terms from the Rich- 
 
Monuments in Holly wood. 201 
 
 mond District, and one of Jefferson Davis's 
 Secretaries of War during the four years' 
 life of the Confederate States. 
 
 A massive granite monument is over a 
 vault that will one clay contain the dust of 
 ex-Governor William Smith ("Extra Billy "), 
 as it now does that of his wife and some of 
 his sons. But the brave and strong old man, 
 now an octogenarian, yet lingers on the shore 
 of time. Letcher and Johnson, Wise and 
 Floyd, Campbell and Gilmer, and others, are 
 gone; the names of some of them " have been 
 carved for many a year on the tomb;" but 
 he is still among the younger men who knew 
 the statesmen and politicians of ante bellum, 
 who went through the war of secession, and 
 see the twentieth year since peace was made 
 at Appomattox. 
 
 Hollywood has several conspicuous monu- 
 ments of ministers of the gospel; a number 
 also sleep in graves not recognized by the 
 general visitor. Besides those great lights 
 of non-episcopal Churches already named 
 (Jeter and Plumer), there are two Bishops 
 interred here — Richard Ch aiming Moore, of 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church, predeces- 
 
202 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 sor of the late Bishop Meade (he died in 
 Lynchburg in 1841, having seen the minis- 
 ters of his diocese increase from seven to 
 ninety-five), and David S. Doggett, of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, whose 
 eloquent preaching and comparatively recent 
 death are within the memory of all of us. 
 
 The s reat logician and debater of South- 
 ern Methodism, Wm. A. Smith, D.D., lies 
 beneath a plain and rather small stone shaft 
 erected by his brethren; while a tall and 
 beautiful column of granite, with polished 
 faces, marks the spot where sleeps the incom- 
 parable James A. Duncan. Two Presidents 
 of Randolph-Macon are in Hollywood then, 
 and inferior they were to none of that or any 
 other college. The monument of Dr. Dun- 
 can and the brief but most appropriate in- 
 scriptions were described and given at length 
 in the Advocate some years ago by Rev. W. 
 E. Judkins. 
 
 A tall granite column is at the resting- 
 place of Rev. Wm. H. Starr, a gentle, faith- 
 ful, holy man, father of Dr. Starr of our Con- 
 ference, and himself a member of it for many 
 years. 
 
Monuments in Hollywood. 
 
 203 
 
 Dr. William J. Hoge, brother of Moses I). 
 Hoge, D.D., and father of Rev. Peyton H. 
 Hoge, an eloquent man and much lamented, 
 lies underneath a beautiful marble monument 
 erected by friends in New York, Baltimore, 
 and Petersburg, at which last place he died 
 during the war. 
 
 Two other graves of ministers are marked 
 —that of ST. W. Wilson, D.D., of the Bap- 
 tist Church, who fell a victim in New Or- 
 leans to the yellow fever of 1878, and that 
 of the venerable Dr. Anderson Wade, of the 
 Episcopal Church, long a resident in Charles 
 City. 
 
 Monuments very similar to Dr. Duncan's 
 are in the new cemetery at the graves of Dr. 
 W. S. Plumer and Dr. J. B. Jeter, the great 
 Presbyterian and Baptist preachers, whose 
 works and fame are coextensive with the 
 bounds ( f their respective Churches. By b 
 remarkable coincidence these great men were 
 born in the same year and month (July, 1802), 
 died in the same year (1880), the one in Feb- 
 ruary, the other in October, and sleep near 
 each other in the same cemetery, the bury- 
 ing-place of the city where each achieved 
 
204 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 great fame and left an indelible impress. 
 The somewhat copious inscriptions on both 
 monuments are excellent compositions; that 
 on Dr. Plumer's the better, I think — senten- 
 tious and appropriate, scriptural and elegant. 
 That is lofty eulogium which declares that 
 he w T as " a pastor, like the Good Shepherd, 
 leading the flock beside the still waters, car- 
 rying the lambs in his bosom; a preacher, 
 eloquent, instructive, persuasive, scriptural, 
 wise to win souls, knowing only Christ and 
 him crucified." The description of his person- 
 al appearance and traits is graphic: "A man 
 of majestic form and patriarchal manners, per- 
 fect integrity, apostolic fervor, truest friend- 
 ship." In both these saints was fulfilled that 
 scripture which says, "With long life will I 
 satisfy him, and show him my salvation." 
 " Nevertheless, man being in [even such] 
 honor abideth not." "Your fathers, where 
 are they? and the prophets, do they live for- 
 ever?" 
 
 But I find my space giving out long before 
 my subject, and must reserve further descrip- 
 tions for another time. 
 
Monuments in Hollywood. 
 
 205 
 
 No. 33. 
 
 MONUMENTS IN HOLLYWOOD (CONTINUED). 
 
 F literary men there are some ex- 
 amples — notably, John R. Thomp- 
 son, long the editor of the Southern 
 Literary Messenger, whose tasteful monument, 
 " erected by his Northern and Southern 
 friends," says he was "the graceful poet, the 
 brilliant writer, the steadfast friend, the loyal 
 Virginian, the earnest and consistent Chris- 
 tian." John Hampden Cbamberlayne's sim- 
 ple granite head-stone is on the main " West 
 Vale Avenue:" his brother-in-law, Dr. George 
 W. Bagby ("0 rare Ben Jonson!"), sleeps 
 in Shockoe Hill Cemetery. A chaste, grave, 
 and now somewhat old-looking monument 
 of brown-stone covers the dust of Wm. Max- 
 well, Esq., State Librarian (if I mistake not) 
 in his time, and well known for years as a 
 scholarly lawyer, "a promoter of education." 
 In the circle near President Monroe is the 
 monument of Matthew Fontaine Maury, the 
 great author of the "Physical Geograpby of 
 the Sea" and of the world-famous "Winds 
 
206 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 and Currents Charts," by which long voy- 
 ages, like those to California and Australia, 
 were shortened one-third, and the commerce 
 of Great Britain alone estimated by a writer 
 in one of the quarterlies to haveioeen saved 
 £10,000,000 per year. He founded the Naval 
 Observatory at Georgetown, and advanced, it 
 by his industrious service; retiring from it 
 when the war of 1861 began, to serve his 
 native State and section, and dying, after the 
 strife w T as over, at the Virginia Military In- 
 stitute, setting, with Gen. Lee at the neigh- 
 boring Washington College, the great exam 
 pie of pious submission to the will of God 
 and of labor for the Southern youth. At 
 least one of the successors he has had at the 
 Observatory has been a man not wanting in 
 learning and ability, but an avowed agnostic 
 and unbeliever who has lent the strength of 
 his mind and acquirements to the overthrow 
 of faith in a personal God. I remember that 
 the only time I ever heard and saw Maury 
 (at the University of Virginia in 1855) he 
 drew upon his observation of nature in a 
 striking passage of his address, to confirm 
 the faith of his audience in a God of order, 
 
Monuments in Hollywood. 207 
 
 might, and love. He was an old-fashioned 
 Virginian, full of love of God's creation, and 
 when he died requested that his body might 
 be borne to its resting-place through the 
 famous "Goshen Pass" when the rhododen- 
 drons were in bloom. 
 
 A few distinguished jurists are among the 
 Hollywood dead. Judge Moore, of Alabama, 
 ha3 a beautiful monument of Tennessee mar- 
 ble near the grave of Dr. Wm. Hoge. A lit- 
 tle north of his is the tomb of Judge Lyons, 
 of the Richmond Hustings Court. Else- 
 where lies that marvel of legal learning, 
 "Wm. Green, LL.D.; and the grave of the 
 late Judge Robert Ould is just by the monu- 
 ment he erected over his first wife's remains, 
 a little way east of Bishop Doggett's. In 
 like manner the grave of Judge R. II. Cole- 
 man, of Fredericksburg, is near the monu- 
 ment erected by students of the University 
 to his son, a most promising youth, unfort- 
 unately killed by a railroad train at Char- 
 lottesville. 
 
 War and soldiers are not forgotten in 
 Hollywood, where lie the bodies of hundreds, 
 perhaps thousands, of the men who bled for 
 
208 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 the " Lost Cause." The !A Confederate Monu- 
 ment," a huge pyramid of unhewn stone, 
 partially grown over with ivy and other 
 creepers, towers majestically on the northern 
 side of the old cemetery. It has a Latin in 
 scription, often printed, but seen by few who 
 visit it. The great heroes of the civil war, 
 so far as the South is concerned, sleep at 
 Lexington. But Hollywood holds one whose 
 name will ever be the s}monym of chivalric 
 bravery. He fell at the conflict at Yellow 
 Tavern, where, by dint of hammering with 
 a comparative handful upon the vastly supe- 
 rior forces of Sheridan, he compelled that 
 dashing Federal officer to give over a ride 
 into Richmond which was invitingly open 
 before him. It is meet, then, that the body 
 of gallant "Jeb" Stuart should be in keep- 
 ing of the city he saved and died in saving. 
 A tall column of granite, with simple inscrip- 
 tion, tells that he fell at the early age of 
 thirty-one. The words " Lieut.-gen. A. P. 
 Hill" on the flat granite curbing, inside of 
 which he is "alone in his glory," point to 
 the spot where lies that brave and successful 
 lieutenant of Jackson, on whose dying lips 
 
Monuments in Hollywood. 209 
 
 his name lingered. He was the only general 
 officer who fell in the evacuation of Peters- 
 burg; he seemed to prefer to die with the 
 Southern cause. A marble cross is at the 
 head of Gen. E. H. Chilton, for some time 
 Gen. Lee's Adjutant-general. And all over 
 the grounds are small monumental stones 
 beneath which lie the bones of officers of all 
 the lower grades of service, many from the 
 Gulf States. Gen. Pickett's grave is un- 
 marked; it is on "Gettysburg Hill," to the 
 north of the great Confederate pyramid. 
 Among other as yet unmarked graves known 
 to me are those of Maj. John Stewart Walker, 
 who fell at Malvern Hill (one of the best 
 Methodists who ever lived in Richmond, and 
 a man of noblest type), and that true-hearted, 
 brave, and faithful soldier, Maj. Walker's 
 brother-in-law, Col. John M. Otey, the Ad- 
 jutant-general of Beauregard and Johnston 
 in the West. Few lives have ever had such 
 a record of faithful self-sacrifice and devo- 
 tion to those he loved as that which ended 
 just two years ago in Col. Otey's death. 
 Sweet as the roses that bloom at his head is 
 the odor of such a life. 
 14 
 
210 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 JSTo profession is more fully represented in 
 Hollywood than the medical. Faithfully 
 laboring to delay the coming of their patients 
 to its sheltering protection, they have them- 
 selves found there, from the impartial sep- 
 ulcher, a welcome. In old age, in the prime 
 of life, and in youth, these disciples of Escu- 
 lapius have taken the "medicine" which, 
 like Raleigh's death-ax, is "sharp, but cures 
 all diseases." The love and care of "the 
 poor" is mentioned on some of these doc- 
 tors' tombs. Happy men! who sweetened 
 the bitter potion of poverty, and who are 
 sadly missed by the humblest and poorest 
 patient. The late Dr. James Bolton is buried 
 beneath one of the prettiest of the Tennes- 
 see marble monuments. Near him lies his 
 son, the young engineer, whose life was sac- 
 rificed by the caving in of the Chesapeake 
 and Ohio tunnel under Church Hill— an 
 ugly, dark hole that I never go through 
 without a feeling of recoil, and which should 
 never have been constructed. 
 
 One notices the great number of columns 
 made of James River granite. This excel- 
 lent stone, which for building purposes and 
 
Monuments in Hollywood-. 
 
 211 
 
 paving is finding its way into every part of 
 the Union, is found in abundance on both 
 sides of the river above Richmond and op- 
 posite to it. It takes a beautiful polish, and 
 is as durable as "the everlasting hills" out 
 of which it is quarried. Of the scores of 
 monuments made of it, the finest is the Ma- 
 sonic monument to Dr. Dove, Grand Scribe 
 of the Grand Lodge of Virginia for more 
 than forty years. It is very near the canal, 
 and with the smaller but still noble column 
 in memory of James R. Branch (cut off in 
 the prime of life and mid-career by the fall- 
 ing of a bridge in 1869), and the monument 
 of Mr. Larus recently erected, forms a prom- 
 inent part of the view from all points along 
 the river. Around the monument of their 
 great old Secretary the Masons have bur- 
 ied many of their brethren. Dr. Henkle's 
 wooden head-board, as I have before stated, 
 is here. The Masonic order have rewarded 
 forty years' service with a noble structure; 
 the Church has allowed a true and holy man, 
 who served at her altars for an equal length 
 of time, to slumber for twenty years under 
 the sign of a pine plank! 
 
212 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 Of monumental sculpture there are many 
 examples in the tombs of Hollywood, chiefly 
 over the graves of women. One on a man's 
 near President Monroe's is a bowed figure 
 wholly covered with drapery through which 
 the figure is dimly discernible, suggestive of 
 perfect abandonment to grief. Other figures 
 represent angelic pity or consolation. Ferns, 
 lilies, and other flowers are in chiseled abun- 
 dance, and occasionally there are small re- 
 cumbent statues. In one place there is a 
 round stone column about ten or twelve 
 feet high, with a flat cap-stone and heraldic 
 shield, unlike any thing else in the cemetery. 
 
 As to inscriptions in general, it may be 
 said that very many are brief, names and 
 dates only; some are puerile and inappro- 
 priate; a few are in German (one of a youth 
 near Dr. Duncan's grave contains the first 
 verse of Count Zinzendorf's hymn, so w T ell 
 translated by John Wesley, beginning, "Je- 
 sus, thy blood and righteousness"). One on 
 the tomb of a railroad employe, killed in a 
 collision, is a singular poem of three stanzas, 
 full of metaphors derived from his calling. 
 Those which I read with never-exhausted in- 
 
Monuments in Hollywood. 213 
 
 terest are expressive of Christian faith and 
 hope and resignation. In the Catacombs of 
 Rome, amid the horrors of persecution, the 
 hunted and despised followers of Jesus left 
 on the walls of the gloomy refuge, which was 
 sanctuary and charnel-house in one, the im- 
 perishable record of their high faith. On 
 the graves of Anglo-Saxons, the great civiliz- 
 ers of the world, that faith, after eighteen cent- 
 uries, still utters no uncertain sound. The 
 gospel which " hath brought life and immor- 
 tality to light" swallows up "death in vic- 
 tory/"' One of the most perfect of these 
 Christian inscriptions in Hollywood, ingeni- 
 ous, but not labored, is on the head-stone of 
 Mrs. Susan Morton Hoge, wife of Rev. M. D. 
 Hoge, D.D.: " From a Life of Love, through 
 a Death of Peace, into an Eternity of Glory." 
 On the shaft which marks the resting- 
 place of a young lady is this language: "Her 
 last words, ' My trust is in my Saviour. I 
 die without a doubt or fear.'" What other 
 people besides Christian believers " die with- 
 out a doubt or fear?" In apathy, in reckless 
 bravado, in stupidity, or with inward trem- 
 blnig or fearful anxiety, men may die who 
 
214 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 know not the Lord Jesus. And if in outward 
 calmness or philosophic dignity, yet with 
 what uncertainty and doubt ! But the Chris- 
 tians " die well;" old or young, cultured or 
 rude, rich or poor, in prosperity or at the end 
 of crushing adversities and losses, they 
 breathe their life out sweetly who lean their 
 heads on the bosom of Jesus. From the 
 graves of these young and inexperienced be- 
 lievers, little known out of their immediate 
 families, no less than from the tombs of 
 saints like Plumer and Jeter, and Bishops 
 Moore and Doggett, and Drs. Hoge and Dun- 
 can, the victorious shout arises, caught up 
 by the' millions of Christians who yet remain 
 alive: "O death! where is thy sting? O 
 grave! where is thy victory? Thanks be 
 unto God, w r hich giveth us the victory 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ. " 
 
An Elocutionary Pulpit. 
 
 215 
 
 No. 34. 
 
 AN ELOCUTIONARY PULPIT. 
 
 OME days ago I was reading the 
 preface of a work, a valuable work 
 in its department of knowledge— 
 " Gymnastics of the Voice," by Oskar Gutt- 
 mann. In referring to the defective elocu- 
 tion exhibited, most of all in the ministerial 
 profession, the clever author says: 
 
 " The remark often heard in this respect, 
 that a pulpit speaker ought only to care for 
 what he says, not how he says it, cannot be 
 made any longer. How can a perfect sermon 
 be brought to a true appreciation without a 
 perfect delivery? Let less stress, therefore, 
 be put on the sinful state of man, and more 
 stress on the sinful neglect of a true aesthetic 
 form and culture, and let there be given a 
 good example in this respect by an artistic 
 training and cultivation of nature's gifts; 
 for only in this way can the true moral sense 
 in the people be fed°anfl cultivated. Let the 
 people be attracted and accustomed to go to 
 church by the perfection of pulpit oratory. 
 
216 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 Let the noble thoughts be clothed in a noble 
 form." 
 
 This language is not only a specimen of 
 the notions of many men as to the function 
 of the pulpit, but it is a type of the thoughts 
 in which a considerable class of persons com- 
 fort themselves in the utter neglect of wor- 
 ship and attending church. They may ad- 
 mit the intrinsic nobility of the thoughts 
 contained is very much Christian preaching, 
 but they beg to be excused from listening to 
 those which are not " clothed in a noble 
 form" according to a standard quite as high, 
 perhaps, as that of Mr. Guttmann. And as 
 few if any clergymen, by natural gifts and 
 cultivation, attain to this " form," these very 
 particular hearers are content to gather their 
 ideas of morality and religion from books and 
 newspapers, or perhaps the " noble form " of 
 the actors in theaters. With them manner 
 is every thing. The matter may be the voice 
 of God to man on the subjects of greatest 
 importance to man, but it must be treated 
 with contemptuous indifference, not to say 
 received with disgust, unless voice, gesture, 
 modulation, emphasis, combine to constitute 
 
An Elocutionary Pulpit. 217 
 
 " a noble form" considered from the stand- 
 point of the professor of elocution. Before 
 discussing this unsound view, let me hasten 
 to say how highly I value the gifts of nature 
 for delivery and real cultivation of a high 
 order in elocution. Blessed is that preacher 
 whose voice is like a lute; whose "bodily 
 presence" is not at all "contemptible/' but 
 commanding and attractive; whose utterance 
 and gesticulation are natural, easy, pleasant, 
 impressive; whom it is a pleasure without 
 drawback to hear. As to your actor-like 
 preacher, whose art is not well concealed, 
 whose delivery smacks strongly of affectation, 
 whose voice is artificial and gestures studied, 
 though his articulation be distinct and ex- 
 act, though his postures be graceful, and his 
 tones graduated to the emotions supposed to 
 be expressed, now by whispering and now by 
 a fierce gnashing of teeth, I prefer, for my 
 part, the awkwardest boy in " the saddle- 
 bags class" of the itinerant seminary. He, 
 at any rate, is simple, earnest, and means all 
 he says; a blunderer, and at times somewhat 
 ridiculously so, he may be, but he is thinking 
 about something else than the effect he is 
 
218 . Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 producing by his manner. Perhaps a great 
 soul of love and faith and eloquence, like 
 Marvin's, is concealed for the time by that 
 boorish manner and that unlovely exterior. 
 What possible objection can be made to Mr. 
 Guttmann's "Let the noble thoughts be 
 clothed in a noble form?" By all means, if 
 possible. Nothing is sacrified, but much 
 gained, by the attainment of that end. 
 
 But when he talks about laying " less 
 stress" on "the sinful state of man;" and 
 that "the true moral sense in the people" 
 can be " fed and cultivated" only by "artistic 
 training and cultivation of nature's gifts" in 
 the preachers, so that "a good example" 
 shall be given " in this respect," and that 
 people can be effectually " attracted and ac- 
 customed to go to church by the perfection 
 of pulpit oratory" — to all this I most decid- 
 edly object. It is, as I conceive, a complete 
 misunderstanding of the true functions of 
 the ministry, of the real state of the human 
 race, and of the agencies which can be suc- 
 cessfully employed to convert and sanctify 
 men. Is it a time when iniquity abounds, 
 and the love of many waxes cold, to lay "less 
 
An Elocutionary Pulpit. 219 
 
 stress upon the sinful state of man? " Upon 
 what shall we put stress? How ridiculous, 
 to a man in earnest, who really believes man 
 to be sinful and lost, to think of stressing 
 any thing else ! And for a teacher of preach- 
 ing to tell his students that they have heard 
 enough about man's ruin and redemption, 
 and it is time they felt less the importance 
 of that and gave heed to the more necessary 
 theme of their "sinful neglect" to make the 
 right tones and right gestures! And as to 
 "attracting men and accustoming them to 
 go to church," do preachers who excel in elo- 
 cution always have more hearers? Houses 
 will not hold the people who go to hear 
 Moody, but he is no orator, and I suspect 
 never read a work on delivery and elocution 
 ill his life. People overflow the churches 
 where Sam Jones speaks, murdering elocu- 
 tion in every sermon, knowing as little of it 
 as a calf does about the opera. But if there 
 be anything on which Moody and Sam Jones 
 put stress, it is "the sinful state of man." 
 And a& men are sinners, and their sins in- 
 volve tremendous consequences, it is a theme 
 with powerful fascination after all. There 
 
220 'Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 is no other more fascinating, save one, and 
 that is the other and even more approved 
 theme of the two evangelists — namely, the 
 Redeemer and Saviour of sinners. Let these 
 be handled with earnestness, force, faith, and 
 simplicity, with directness and pungency, 
 and men will come to church. Or if they 
 stay away, not all the elocution from the 
 time of Demosthenes to that of Guttmau 
 would bring or save them. " The god of 
 this world has blinded the minds" of such 
 men; they may make an occasional excur- 
 sion to hear some pulpit lecturing to kill the 
 heavy hours of a Sunday, but going or tarry- 
 ing with any serious intent is not in all their 
 thoughts. 
 
 Whether we consider the duty of preach- 
 ers, or the effect they produce, or the ques- 
 tion of acceptableness, every thing is against 
 this theory of laying chief stress on manner 
 and trying to convert the world by " excel- 
 lency of speech." Indeed, St. Paul, the 
 greatest of Christian ministers, reminds the 
 Corinthians that when he came to them de- 
 claring the testimony of God it was "not 
 with excellency of speech or of wisdom." 
 
An Elocutionary Pulpit. 
 
 221 
 
 And that he meant that he came without 
 graces of elocution or oratory is very certain, 
 for these had always been much cultivated 
 among the Greeks, and orators and actors 
 abounded with that polished and inquisitive 
 people. But Paul did not, on that account, 
 give up putting stress on the great doctrines 
 of the gospel, but " in weakness and much 
 trembling" he sought the divine power and 
 preached " with the Holy Ghost sent down 
 from heaven." To substitute elocution for 
 that is like trusting in " Baal-zebub, the 
 god of Ekron." Conceding the desirable- 
 ness of pleasing men with voice and manner, 
 where possible, it is nevertheless all-impor- 
 tant to maintain the position that men are 
 not to come to church to be entertained. 
 Drive that idea out of their heads, not by re- 
 pelling them from the sanctuary by unpleas- 
 antness of delivery, eccentricity of manner, 
 and disregard of common sense in speaking, 
 but by presenting the subjects of sin and re- 
 demption in such overwhelming contrast to 
 all else, and with such pointed application, 
 that they shall not be able to give a serious 
 thought to the subject of elocution. Men in 
 
222 Recreations of a Presiding Elder. 
 
 battle, exposed to a fire of grape and canister, 
 do not have time to admire the mechanical 
 dexterity and perfection of the apparatus 
 which pours upon them the " hail of death," 
 nor are they in a mood to discuss questions 
 of projectiles and elevation. 
 
 THE EN3X 
 
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 Recreations of a 
 
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