gun fired, tearing the poor boy in front almost in two parts, killing him instantly. It was very said indeed!

The foregoing was an accident. The following was in incident. One cold, snowy, stormy, wintry morning while we were at breakfast at my boarding house in Washington, at once we heard a wonderful crashing noise of many things fall upon the porch floor and then rush through an open door of a little room that stood at the end of the porch. My host ran out and closed the door and what do you think was caught? Not less than nine quails. We had pot-pie for dinner. The remnants of that pot-pie left over, served for dinner more or less for nearly a week until I became very tired of pot-pie. And so changed my boarding place and boarded with an old, well-to-do retired Hoosier farmer and his wife. The wife was a most excellent cook. Elder Howe, who had traveled over nearly all the states as an evangelist, says no people excel the Hoosiers for their hospitality and god things to eat.

It was about this period of my life that I attended school at the
Northwestern Christian University at Indianapolis, Indiana, and later
at Hiram, Ohio, 1865-1866. My teachers in Indianapolis were
President Benton and Prof. Nushour, and Dr. Brown. At Hiram, Errett,
Burnett, Milligan, Anderson and Atwater. It was here I saw and heard
General Garfield deliver an address. He was a great and good man.
The most scholarly, pure minded and devout man I ever saw were
Milligan and Anderson.

Prior to my attendance to the schools mentioned above I had seen but few of our great teachers and preachers. I had supposed the differences between what they knew and what the ordinary teacher and what the ordinary preacher knew was almost infinite in their favor and that their ability to tell it was very superior but, on becoming acquainted with them, I found they knew nothing more about the unseen world, heaven or hell, or sin and its forgiveness, or death and salvation, than the simple scholar and devout student of the Bible. Now do not think, Boys, for a moment that I am opposed to higher education, and University training. All these things are a great help and blessing to any person, provided, he or she accepts that wisdom that comes from God through His Bible. No man knows anything beyond the horizon of the present, except what God's Bible reveals. And faith here becomes the only means by which this knowledge is obtained. But this is not to be wondered at, for is it not a fact that we are dependent on faith for nearly all knowledge. Faith is the greatest principle in the world, unless it is love. And faith is simply belief. Happy is the man who believes all things and proves all things, and holds fast to all that is good.

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C H A P T E R E L E V E N

A meeting. Go to Kansas, 1967. Nine Mile House. Do Stones grow? On the shelf. The Spencers. The Johnsons. Brother Rufus. March 15, 1868.

During the holidays of the year I was in school in Indianapolis I held a good meeting at Christian Liberty where I had taught and preached for a number of years. Many hearing, believed and were baptized. It was at this place afterwards that I preached my farewell sermon to old Indianans before going to Kansas. There were a great many people at this meeting. Among them a Methodist preacher who, being free to address the people, complimented me by saying that I had not only been a faithful servant of God among my own people but also among all people. He also said that while I left many friends in Indiana I would make many in Kansas. I am happy to say, I have found it even so. That preacher after ran for Governor of Indiana.

I was doing so well and had so many friends in Indiana that I had about abandoned the idea of going to Kansas, but mother, two of my brothers and my two sisters, were already in Kansas and were pleading with me to visit them at any rate. So about the first of July, 1867 I took a train from Washington, Indiana, to St. Louis, Mo, and from there I boarded a steamer for Leavenworth, Kansas, where I landed on the tenth of July, 1867. Our steamer, however, had made a landing early in the morning at Wyandotte to unload some railroad irons for the second road in Kansas. While there I steeped off on the muddy shore remarking that that was the first time I had ever dotted Kansas soil with my feet. "Well sir" said an old darky standing by, "this as a mighty big dot where you step off." I do not know to this day whether he meant the track I made or the town. Kansas City, Missouri was not big enough to stop at then, but it is the big dot of the West now. At Leavenworth and everywhere the yards, gardens, road-sides, fields, all looked barren and dead as if a fire had ran over them. The grass-hoppers had just left.

My brother Henry lived west of Leavenworth city in what was called the Nine Mile House. My brother, younger brother, Rufus, and two sisters, Mrs. Dotson, and Mrs. Sears, lived near Grasshopper Falls known now as Valley Falls.

Of course I had not been in Kansas very long until it was known that I was a young preacher. And I was called upon to preach the funeral of a most excellent lady, Mrs. Roach, who had died in the neighborhood of the Nine Mile House. This was the first time I ever preached in Kansas. It was only a few days after this that I attended a meeting held by Brethren Dibble and McCleary, a few miles west of the Nine Mile House at a place called NO. 6 and here I was invited to preach. I did do it, taking for a subject, "Growth." I remember saying in order to growth there must be union, for separation is death. Even rocks grow, but, separated into stones, they ceased to grow. Good, old, devout, scholarly brother Humber was there, and kindly criticized my sermon by saying he did not believe that rocks grow. I have never preached that sermon since, but I still think rocks do grow.

From that time, 1867, I was a faithful Sunday preacher, more or less in Kansas until I was nearly sixty years old, when I became so infirm that I submitted to a place on the shelf, where I am still waiting for transportation to the skies.

But I am not dead yet, so I will go back and tell the rest of my story. So many new friends in Kansas came about me soliciting me to stay, and teach and preach, that I agreed to do so for one year at least. Among these friends there were none better than Mr. Charley Spencer of Round Prairie. He secured for me the school at a larger salary than I had been getting in Indiana. I also had the privilege of preaching in the lower room of the Masonic building. To Mr. Spencer I preached the gospel, and taught his children to read.

He believed and was baptized, and his children grew up to be wise and good. His son, Hon. Dick Spencer now a leading lawyer of St. Joseph, Mo. learned his A. B. C. at my knees. It was also here during this year that I had the great pleasure and joy of baptizing my youngest brother, Rufus, into Christ.

In the meantime it was here I formed the acquaintance of the Johnson family, Mrs. Emily Johnson, the aged mother and six noble sons, W. L. David, W. H., J. E., J. C., and M. S. These were all good citizen and Christians. The youngest of whom, M. S. whose wife I baptized, became an able preacher of the Word, and is to this day, preaching somewhere in the state of Oklahoma. The third son, W. H. was widower, and, with my help to solemnize the contract, he took a second wife. This wedding took place on the hill across the creek from at Joseph McBride's residence (for the bride was his daughter), and this was my first wedding in Kansas. Of the weddings that followed this I will not attempt to tell you, for they are too many to be enumerated in a short story of an old preacher's life.

These Johnsons all